Motif Investing Bullish on Funeral Industry

By Dave Westburg February 7, 2017

Motif Investing is bullish in the funeral industry for two reasons: aging baby boomers will increase the demand for funerals and cremations between now and 2036; and 80% of funeral providers are private which provides room for consolidation.  

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Matthews Memorialization Flat in 1Q 2017

By Dave Westburg January 26, 2017

Matthews International announced revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 (3 months ended  December 31, 2016).   You can read the earnings release here and the Seeking Alpha earnings call transcript here.  Funeral Director Daily will focus on the performance of the company’s memorialization segment which produces headstones, caskets and urns. Memorialization sales declined…

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Stonemor Partners CFO departs.

By Dave Westburg January 23, 2017

TREVOSE, Pa., Jan. 23, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — StoneMor Partners L.P. (NYSE:STON) (“StoneMor” or the “Partnership”) today announced that Sean P. McGrath resigned as Chief Financial Officer of StoneMor GP LLC (“StoneMor GP”), the general partner of the Partnership, to pursue business opportunities outside the deathcare industry. Mr. McGrath will remain in his current role…

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StoneMor Partners L.P. Issues $20 million private placement

By Dave Westburg January 3, 2017

TREVOSE, Pa., Jan. 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — StoneMor Partners L.P. (NYSE:STON) (“StoneMor” or the “Partnership”) today announced that on December 30, 2016, StoneMor GP Holdings LLC, the sole member and owner of the general partner of the Partnership, acquired 2,332,878 common units representing limited partner interests of the Partnership in a private placement for…

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Carriage Services Acquires Rich & Thompson Funeral Services in North Carolina

By Dave Westburg November 15, 2016

HOUSTON, Nov. 15, 2016  Carriage Services, Inc. (NYSE: CSV) is pleased to announce that we have partnered with Rich & Thompson Funeral Services in the Strategic Market of Raleigh/Durham/Greensboro in North Carolina.  Dating back to 1913, the Rich & Thompson name has been a prominent name in funeral service in both Burlington, NC and Graham, NC.…

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BUSINESS

Content planning to boost a funeral home’s online presence

By Funeral Director Daily | October 10, 2025

    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?

By Funeral Director Daily | October 8, 2025

    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

By Funeral Director Daily | October 3, 2025

    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

Milestone Funeral Partners adds funeral home acquisitions

By Funeral Director Daily | October 9, 2025

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

By Funeral Director Daily | October 7, 2025

    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…

Park Lawn adds Memorial Gardens in Taos

By Funeral Director Daily | October 6, 2025

  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.…

REGULATIONS

Veteran Cemeteries will continue with burials. . . but what is open and closed on a government shutdown

By Funeral Director Daily | September 29, 2025

  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

By Funeral Director Daily | September 16, 2025

      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

By Funeral Director Daily | September 11, 2025

      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

By Funeral Director Daily | October 6, 2025

  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

By Funeral Director Daily | September 25, 2025

    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”

By Funeral Director Daily | September 3, 2025

    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

Can independent funeral home operators undercut “wannabe” national cremation providers on price?

By Funeral Director Daily | October 8, 2025

    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

By Funeral Director Daily | September 25, 2025

    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…

Are we nearing the “Cremation Peak”?

By Funeral Director Daily | September 10, 2025

    There are some interesting survey results out that question if the United States will soon reach the “Peak Percentage” of cremation rates as the disposition of choice.   Last year at this time…

PRENEED

Preneed companies emerge as funeral home lending sources

By Funeral Director Daily | October 3, 2025

    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

By Funeral Director Daily | October 1, 2025

  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”

By Funeral Director Daily | September 30, 2025

    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

By Funeral Director Daily | September 30, 2025

    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

By Funeral Director Daily | September 19, 2025

  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

By Funeral Director Daily | September 5, 2025

  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…