Over the last week I ran into an article in the Australian news about the funeral service provider Propel Funeral Partners. You can read the article for yourself here. Propel Funeral Partners has been in business for over five years but just last week took its stock public on the Australian Stock Exchange raising $131…
At Funeral Director Daily we are very blessed. Funeral service has been very good to us and we have had the satisfaction of knowing that we made a difference in the lives of many by the way we helped during their time of loss. I’ve also been blessed by having a wife and children who…
About two months ago we came across a story from Killeen, Texas, and wrote about what Rachel Dwyer, general manager of the Heritage Funeral Home and Killeen Funeral Home was planning. In that article we commented that we thought that this could really prove to be a positive public relations move and something that would…
Last Wednesday Hillenbrand Industries reported 4th quarter 2017 and full year 2017 results. For both the quarter and the year the company reported that company’s overall revenue had grown about 3% overall. For both the quarter and the year, however, revenue increased in the Process Equipment segment of their business and decreased in the Batesville…
The web-site for the Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery describe it as a National Treasure that was founded in 1829. It is known as a cemetery with soldiers from as far back as the Revolutionary War among the sacred dead. The site goes on to say that the cemetery was abandoned in 2008 and “is…
BUSINESS
Content planning to boost a funeral home’s online presence
Boosting Your Funeral Home’s Online Presence: An Action Plan for Content That Engages and Builds Trust In today’s digital world, a funeral home website is far more than a static brochure. It’s the…
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 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…
FINANCE
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,…
Milestone Funeral Partners adds funeral home acquisitions
According to the Milestone Funeral Partners website, which you can access here, and information placed on social media, the Maine-based funeral home operator and consolidator added four funeral home businesses to their number in the…
Another acquisition by Park Lawn Corporation
Maybe there is something to the ongoing prediction that a whole lot of funeral homes will be changing hands in the next 3 to 5 years. Barely after we were able to get…
REGULATIONS
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…
Funeral Directors are heroes
The beginning of a recent article on the ASD Blog, authored by Jessica Farren, had a quote without, to my knowledge, an author’s acknowledgement. I will post it here with no acknowledgement…
CEMETERY
Park Lawn adds Memorial Gardens in Taos
According to this press release from Park Lawn Corporation, the funeral home and cemetery consolidator added what they call their Taos Memorial Gardens adjacent to their existing DeVargas Funeral Home in Taos, New Mexico.…
Green Burials. . . . . .The Resistance
Minnesota funeral director Scott Mueller is a proponent of “Green Burials”. Mueller makes a comment in this recent article from the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin titled “As interest in green burials grows, so does…
Airlines, cemeteries dealing with “Wide-bodies”
Just last week according to this article from Newsweek “Southwest Airlines announced that it was ending a policy that allowed plus-size travelers to book an extra seat without extra costs. Under the new…
CREMATION
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…
Green Burials. . . . . .The Resistance
Minnesota funeral director Scott Mueller is a proponent of “Green Burials”. Mueller makes a comment in this recent article from the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin titled “As interest in green burials grows, so does…
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
News for the Profession
Sunset continues to redefine their process of finding assets for families. They recently announced that they have a new website that makes the search for assets even easier. Sunset is a free service…
Titan Casket “keeps on keeping on”. . . . .and growing
Trying to be a “BTC” (Business to Consumer) casket company has been tried before and even with great effort the cause was difficult. However, the people at Titan Casket must relate to the Curtis…
Dilemma: The affluent consumer and traditional Death Care
On Tuesday morning I had to alter my running schedule because of rain showers. So, I took to our indoor treadmill to get my daily exercise and had a nice run while watching the…
