Finance

Milestone Funeral Partners hires M&A expert

By Funeral Director Daily / March 13, 2025 /

I like to stay in the know about all of the National and Regional funeral home and cemetery acquisition and operating companies.  Sometimes though I’m surprised by the growth of these companies over time if I have not checked in regularly.   I had that feeling the other day about Milestone Funeral Partners when I…

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New Advisory Group formed at Foundation Partners

By Funeral Director Daily / March 12, 2025 /

    New Foundation Partners Group CEO John Smith didn’t waste any time in forming a group of former owners to learn more about the Death Care business.  Smith, with lots of management experience but none in the Death Care realm was hired by Foundation Partners Group (FPG) earlier in 2025.  Here’s a Funeral Director…

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Carriage Services Earnings Call: Lots of cliches come to mind

By Funeral Director Daily / March 5, 2025 /

  I recently read the Carriage Services Earnings Call transcript from last week which pertained to the company’s 4th Quarter of 2024 as well as their financial year end for 2024.  It’s interesting that as I read the transcript, which you can access here from Seeking Alpha, several well-meaning cliches came to my mind. .…

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Carriage Services: Executing on Plan?

By Funeral Director Daily / March 3, 2025 /

  Last week public funeral home and cemetery consolidator and operator Carriage Services released their 4th Quarter 2024 and Year End 2024 financial results.  One of the items that the company mentioned in the press release which you can read here is “lower volumes we began experiencing in October”.   I mention that simply because…

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SCI Year-End Results: Revenue Up, Service Case Volume Down, Preneed brings questions

By Funeral Director Daily / February 17, 2025 /

    Service Corporation International (SCI) reported its 4th Quarter of 2024 as well as its 2024 Year End results last week.  Being as large a Death Care company as they are it is probably as close as one gets to an annual report on the status of Death Care in the North America when…

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Pinnacle/Rollings add staff. . . .importance and presence of non-public companies seems to be growing

By Funeral Director Daily / February 12, 2025 /

    We received an e-mail last week that announced “Pinnacle Funeral Service and Rollings Funeral Service are proud to announce that Nancy Weil has joined the team as Director of Community Outreach. . . . .Nancy’s career includes serving as the Membership Director for the Order of the Golden Rule (OGR) for the past…

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Matthews International 1Q 2025: Memorialization segment sales drop 8.5%

By Funeral Director Daily / February 11, 2025 /

  Suffice it to say that if you are in a C-Suite office at Matthews International you probably have a lot on your plate right now.  Amidst other items that we will report on later including a large shareholder’s discontent leading to Board member nominations, the sale process of the SGK Brand segment, and an…

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Trump and Musk. . . .Can you learn from their cost efficiency mandate?

By Funeral Director Daily / February 10, 2025 /

    President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) leader Elon Musk are rapidly looking at costs that are currently in the government budget that may be able to be whittled out.  It may not be perfect and it may not even be proper — as is discussed in this Yahoo Finance article…

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Death Care investments. . . . an interesting observation

By Funeral Director Daily / February 7, 2025 /

    There has been a lot written about the stock markets in the two weeks of the Presidency of Donald Trump.  So much seems to depend on what the item of the day with President Trump is and that item seems to move markets one way or another.   I’m an amateur investor and…

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Our opinion: Matthews sale of ‘brand solutions unit” consolidates company into “Death Care and Innovation”

By Funeral Director Daily / January 29, 2025 /

    I’ve heard from people over the years that thought Matthews International was “too complicated” of a company.  The company that started in 1850 and and produced its first-ever bronze memorial in 1927, according to this article on Matthews history, continued with ever-increasing products for Death Care but also entered other business segments over…

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