Propel Funeral Partners reports First-Half 2022, volumes, Revenue per Case move up

March 4, 2022/Finance/

There is no doubt that the world is a smaller place today because of the information that can be received instantaneously. Look no further than war reporting and satellites in the sky — during World War II information on battles took days to reach American civilians while today reporters are in the field and send information via satellite in real time.

It is no different in the business world, including the world of funeral service, where customs and best practices become editorialized in almost real time among the countries of the modern death care world. That leads me to believe, that over time, many best practices and consumer choices in memorialization will become more standardized around the developed world.

It is because of that stance that I always take note of what is happening in other countries, how companies are producing profits, and what trends can we find from the consumers. For instance, high cremation provider nations such as Great Britain and Australia can illustrate to North American firms how to be profitable in those environments through their own history.

So, today we report on the First-Half of the 2022 Fiscal Year (July 2021 thru December 2021) for Austalia’s second-largest publicly traded death care provider, Propel Funeral Partners. Propel’s investor report indicates that they have 145 locations as of February 2022. For the First-Half (FH) FY2022 their funeral volumes are reported up 14.9% to 7,928 services. That number of services, in itself, gives us some idea of Propel Funeral Partners. It indicates that on a full-year basis the average volume of their 145 locations would be about 109 services — rather small by North American standards.

Here is a short report on Propel Funeral Partners recent results.

The revenue of Propel Funeral Partners for FH2022 is reported at AUS $68.0 million (Australian dollars which would equal about $49.3 million in U.S. dollars). Propel reports that is a 15.2% increase over last year at the same time.

At AUS $68.0 million for the half-year that would equate to a total of AUS $ 136 million for the full year or in U.S. dollars about $98.66 million. That also helps us compute that the average location for Propel Funeral Homes has an annual dollar volume in U.S. dollars of about US $ 680,000.

Here is a couple of other statistics we noticed:

Operating EBITDA increased 17.8% to AUS $18.4 million (US $ 13.35 million)
Operating Net Profit increased 30.4% to AUS 7.8 million (US $ 5.66 million)

Finally, we also made note that for the First Half of 2022 Fiscal Year the company’s Revenue per Case has grown to AUS $5,902 (US $ 4,281). What is significant about that is that, as you may know, Australia and New Zealand have had some of the most restricted lockdown situations during the Covid-19 era and that amount is actually 2.5% higher than the pre-Covid period in those countries. . . . so, even with those lockdowns Propel Funeral Partners have found a way to raise the revenue necessary to operate.

From this report from the World Health Organization you can see that Australia has had only 5,171 Covid-related deaths in the 26 month period from January 2020 to March 2022. Even more remarkable is that New Zealand has reported only 56 Covid-related deaths in the same time period. The same report lists America’s death toll in Covid-related deaths in that time period at 941,112. While Australia and New Zealand are island nations and have some advantages when closing their borders, those are remarkable statistics.

From this link you can find Propel Funeral Partners First-Half 2022 Report and also a very interesting Investor Presentation which when looked at is very similar to those of public firms in North America when looking towards growth prospects of the company. Those similarities just illustrate my assumption that death care in developed nations is conforming to a fast-changing consumer preference base. Smart funeral homes will be ahead of the trends to stay relevant with those consumers.

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