The other day a funeral service professional asked me, “What do you see on the horizon for funeral service?” Since I have not put out any predictions for over a year I thought I would just give an answer on what comes to mind first for me. Instead of a long, thought out answer sometimes…
On January 31 Matthews International, parent company of Matthews Cremation and Aurora Casket, reported its first quarter of fiscal year 2019 which covers the period of October 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018. You can read the press release from Matthews here. As a company the consolidated sales totaled $374.2 million as compared to $369.5…
A recent fire in a Canadian funeral home has caused the funeral home’s operating license to be suspended due to the fact that the building is no longer suitable to operate a funeral business out of. You can read a short article here about this situation in Nova Scotia. According to the article the licensing…
Since it is Friday and I could not find a single great story to bring to you, I thought I would just give you several articles with each having a little tease and let you pick and choose which ones you would like to learn more about. Cape Canaveral Cemetery — The Cape Canaveral Cemetery…
Multi-faceted conglomerate Hillenbrand Industries, parent of death care company Batesville, reported higher revenue year over year for their 1st Quarter which ended on December 31. Hillenbrand, as a whole, reported revenue for the quarter of $410 million which is 3% higher than one year ago. Hillenbrand’s Processed Equipment Group (PEG) reported revenue growth of 7%.…
BUSINESS
Dead people don’t pay taxes
In early October North America’s largest purveyor of Death Care services, Service Corporation International (SCI), received an approved zoning ruling to build Funeraria del Angel, a funeral home and cemetery in San Antonio,…
Are we in the midst of a paradigm shift, from “Services selection” to “Memorialization selection”, by the consumer
As things seem to do in my life, circumstances came together this week to have me reflect on changes in the Death Care profession/industry. First of all, here’s three items that came together…
Hollywood Forever’s “High-Rise” mausoleum and “Premium” products may be the future of cemeteries
This information (with photos) from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery announces the opening of their recently completed Gower Mausoleum. Here’s a paragraph from the cemetery’s recent announcement: “Hollywood Forever is honored to announce the…
FINANCE
Seeking Alpha author on SCI stock: “You might want to hold this one until your last breath”
Seeking Alpha contributiing author Daniel Jones published an article this week titled, “Service Corporation International: You might want to hold this one until your last breath”. It is a very interesting article that…
Rollings Funeral Services makes acquisitions
Funeral Director Daily recently learned that Rollings Funeral Service, based in Georgia, made a couple of acquisitions involving more than 100-year old family funeral homes. Over the summer they purchased the McCombs Funeral Home of…
PlotBox acquires MIS
In this press release issued last week you can read that PlotBox has acquired MIS (sometimes referred to as HMIS). The PlotBox website brings about this statement about the integration of the companies,…
REGULATIONS
Dead people don’t pay taxes
In early October North America’s largest purveyor of Death Care services, Service Corporation International (SCI), received an approved zoning ruling to build Funeraria del Angel, a funeral home and cemetery in San Antonio,…
Veteran Cemeteries will continue with burials. . . but what is open and closed on a government shutdown
Tomorrow is the last day of the federal government’s fiscal year. That is not necessarily a big deal except that the new federal budget year begins on Wednesday and as I write this on…
Indiana Court: “Death Doula” does not need a funeral director license
According to this issue of the Indianapolis Star an Indiana court of appeals ruled in late August that the State of Indiana “violated the First Amendment rights of a Fort Wayne “death…
CEMETERY
Dead people don’t pay taxes
In early October North America’s largest purveyor of Death Care services, Service Corporation International (SCI), received an approved zoning ruling to build Funeraria del Angel, a funeral home and cemetery in San Antonio,…
Are we in the midst of a paradigm shift, from “Services selection” to “Memorialization selection”, by the consumer
As things seem to do in my life, circumstances came together this week to have me reflect on changes in the Death Care profession/industry. First of all, here’s three items that came together…
Hollywood Forever’s “High-Rise” mausoleum and “Premium” products may be the future of cemeteries
This information (with photos) from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery announces the opening of their recently completed Gower Mausoleum. Here’s a paragraph from the cemetery’s recent announcement: “Hollywood Forever is honored to announce the…
CREMATION
Are we in the midst of a paradigm shift, from “Services selection” to “Memorialization selection”, by the consumer
As things seem to do in my life, circumstances came together this week to have me reflect on changes in the Death Care profession/industry. First of all, here’s three items that came together…
Pure Cremation’s private equity owner putting the business up for sale
I learned through an article from Sky News and in this article from KillBait that Epiris, the private equity firm that acquired London area-based Direct Cremation provider Pure Cremation just over two years ago,…
Can independent funeral home operators undercut “wannabe” national cremation providers on price?
The question posed in the headline is interesting. What is happening in Great Britain may be a precursor of what could happen in North America about the billing amount to consumers for the…
PRENEED
Preneed companies emerge as funeral home lending sources
Morgan Stanley, a global financial services firm that provides a wide range of products and services, including investment banking, wealth management, consumer banking, and brokerage services, recently made this comment in an article, “Life…
Co-op Funeralcare increases “Funeral Plan” sales over 17% despite cyberattack
An April cyberattack which you can read about here probably cost the parent company of Great Britain’s largest funeral home operator, Co-op Funeralcare, about a US$ 107 million profit swing but didn’t seem to…
Acquiring client families — “Any Which Way You Can”
As so often happens in my world I’ve had some real life and/or businesses experiences or discussions in the last week or ten days that has made me think about Death Care. And,…
PRODUCTS
Here’s a new product everyone in the cremation business could use
I operated a crematory at our funeral home and one of the tasks I very much disliked was transfering cremation remains into the very popular “vase-shaped” urns. You see, while the vase-shaped urn has…
PlotBox acquires MIS
In this press release issued last week you can read that PlotBox has acquired MIS (sometimes referred to as HMIS). The PlotBox website brings about this statement about the integration of the companies,…
News for the Profession
News from Suppliers and Practitioners that you can use. . . . From a Press Release from Foveo : Foveo Memorial Services Inc. (“Foveo) and Tukios, one of the profession’s leading…
