From the website of the Parente Funeral Home of Bridgeport, Connecticut comes the announcement that “Kevin Lesko has purchased Parente Lauro Funeral Home, of Bridgeport, from Michael Parente. To assure the seamless transition of his family’s longstanding service, Michael has joined the new funeral care firm. . . . Effective September 1, 2023, all funeral care will be conducted from the Lesko Funeral Home Building, 1209 Post Road, in Fairfield Center (Promenade section of the Brickwalk). The Bridgeport location will no longer be in use. All prior funeral service records, as well as, all prearranged and prepaid funeral contracts with Parente Lauro Funeral Home, will be transferred to the Fairfield facility. All prior arrangements will continue to be honored.”

 

Here is the website of the Parente Lauro Funeral Home

Here is the website of the Lesko & Polke Funeral Home

 

Funeral Director Daily take:  We bring you this information today, not only to make this announcement of a change in ownership, but coupled with last Friday’s article about Service Corporation International (SCI) building a new funeral facility in an existing cemetery, we believe it is another move that makes sense in the new era of funeral home acquisitions.

 

From our point of view, years ago when traditional casketed burials were the overwhelmingly chosen type of funeral, acquisitions and growth seemed much easier.  An owner could buy a competitor, raise the prices, and still continue to draw burial services that helped them build equity in that new business.

 

Today, in a world of rising expenses, and in many cases, flattening revenues per case, funeral home owners have to be much more strategic in their methods of acquisition and growth.  One cannot count on both funeral numbers and average revenue per case to continue to grow.

 

What makes the Parente Funeral Home so sensible in this case is that it appears that overhead will be reduced by the shuttering of the current Parente Lauro Funeral Home and its volume of work being brought into the current Lesko & Polke Funeral Home.  That should reduce the fixed costs per funeral at that funeral home and that makes a lot of sense in a world where they very well could see revenues per case decline.

 

We think it is part of the “New world of Acqusitions” which is all about strategic moves.  We don’t know what will happen with the Parente Lauro Funeral Home real estate but it is possible that it was not included in the sale, or if it was included, it could be sold on its own merits to reduce the debt of the purchaser.

 

We are also finding today that many times metropolitan real estate has more value than the value of the business being sold.  Again, that is part of the “New Nexus” of funeral home acquistions.

 

In any case, we believe that these types of acquisitions will be happening more and more and that the number of funeral establishments in the United States will decline, but the average number of cases per funeral home will increase as we move forward.

 

The business people who can figure the logistics of these “acquisition marriages” out successfully will be the next generation of growing funeral businesses.

 

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