Last week Death Care supplier Matthews International held their First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call with interested parties including investment company representatives.  You can access a full transcript of that Earnings Call courtesy of Seeking Alpha here.

As has become our custom at Funeral Director Daily we will publish some excerpts from that transcript with no commentary on our part.  The following represent opening comments and responses to investment representative questions from Matthews CEO Joseph Bartolacci and CFO Dan Stopar concerning the company’s Memorialization segment.

Opening commentary from CEO Joseph Bartolacci:

“. . . Memorialization continues to serve as the engine that drives our asset portfolio. Our Cornerstone segment had a solid quarter, buoyed by inflationary pricing and higher casket volumes driven by an active flu season and a strong performance in several other product lines. The segment reported a 7% year-over-year increase in sales, thanks to a positive contribution from the Dodge acquisition. Our team has done an exemplary job integrating Dodge, and they are capturing cost synergies ahead of plan. We’ve also taken significant steps to reduce the initial outlay to acquire Dodge, including expected asset sales and working capital reductions.

The outcome of these transactions will bring the adjusted purchase price of Dodge closer to $50 million with anticipated EBITDA contributions of over $12 million, another highly accretive acquisition. We believe there are more M&A opportunities like Dodge available to us, though it is difficult to ascertain when business owners might be ready to contemplate a sale. However, our deep relationships in this space should enable us to be ahead of the market when the time is right.

We’re also seeing strong demand for Mausoleum Construction, which bodes well for our Gibraltar Construction business. Mausoleum projects provide good margins and more importantly, pull through additional opportunities for other products such as bronze lettering and vases.”

Opening commentary from CFO Stopar:

” . . The Dodge acquisition contributed sales of approximately $10.4 million to the current quarter. Higher sales volumes for caskets, bronze and granite cemetery memorials, combined with inflationary price increases also contributed to the improvement in the segment’s results. Mausoleum sales declined, primarily resulting from timing of construction projects and cremation equipment and related sales were also lower than a year ago. . . . “

CEO Bartolacci answers a question on “Memorialization segment expectations:

“. . . We’ve just begun the integration from a commercial standpoint of the opportunities on the Dodge side. We think that there’s an opportunity to expand both market shares on both sides of the equation, whether it be on the Dodge product side or whether it be on our memorial side. And that team is excited about that opportunity. Those efforts are just beginning as we speak. . . .”

CEO Bartolacci answers a question on “Opportunities from an inorganic perspective:

” . . . .I think that when we look at acquisitions, we think we have a pretty good structure to be able to run through every door in the United States when it comes to sales. So if I can add a product line that we currently don’t have and expand it over 100 and some odd salespeople across the United States that currently just put that into their portfolio and begin to sell, we’ll add that.

And then when we look at our structure, and be able to take the kind of synergies that we took out of the Dodge acquisition in a relatively short period of time, we think we can make some highly accretive transactions. . . . 

What I am conveying is that there’s a significant opportunity across the United States and elsewhere in the world to continue to add pieces to the puzzle to this portfolio that we currently don’t have.”

CFO Stopar answers a question on “Copper prices increasing which affects the sale price of Bronze”:

“Yes.  . . . .I think you know we buy out for about 6 months. So that’s — we’re working through that now. But certainly, we’ve been buying at higher rates all along. We’ve passed through price increases that should help us offset that to a large degree.”

More news from the world of Death Care:

• The Cost of Kindness:  How scammers exploit our elders.  Podcast.  O’Connell Family Funeral Homes and Cremation Services podcast.  (WI)
• Southbury funeral director elected Vice-President of Connecticut Funeral Directors Association.  Patch
• Save loved ones money and heartache by prepaying for funeral expenses.  Winnipeg Free Press (Manitoba, Canada)
• Two charged after collapse of funeral plan provider Safe Hands.  Yahoo Finance (Great Britain)
• Cremation is bad for the environment.  JewishLink  (NJ,NY,CT)
• A Detroit cigar baron’s mausoleum was stripped by thieves but no one ever told the family.  Detroit Metro Times (MI)

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