Propel Funeral Partners reports Fiscal Year End 2024 numbers

September 19, 2024/Finance/

Propel Funeral Partners (PNP) which I believe is the 2nd largest Death Care provider in Australia and New Zealand and the largest “publicly traded” Death Care company in those countries reported their year-end results in late August. Propel’s fiscal year covers the time period of July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.

For that Fiscal Year 2024, the company’s revenue was up to AUS $209.2 million (US $ 140.92 million) which is a 24% increase over the prior year and the company’s Net Profit After Tax (NPAT) was AUS $23.4 million (US $ 15.8 Million) which is up 12.2% over the same period for Fiscal Year 2023.

It should be noted, however, that those numbers include part-year operations from eleven acquisitions completed during FY2024.

Management made the following comments in their press release of August 27, 2024, which you can access from this website. You also can access a very well done Power Point presentation about the company from that same link.

“FY 2024 was another record year for Propel”

“The Company experienced material growth in key operating and financial metrics, despite the higher inflationary and interest rate environment and a contraction in industry death volumes, which is expected to be temporary.”

“Total funeral volumes were 21,655 — up approximately 20% over the previous year”

“Comparable funeral volumes contracted 6%”

“Average Revenue per funeral was AUS $6,635 (US $ 4,469) — which was up 4% over FY2023

“Comparable Average Revenue per funeral was up 5.5% over FY2023”

Here is the Propel Funeral Partners website

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I’m not a stockholder, but I like Propel Funeral Partners. I like companies that exhibit growth over a period of time and have the ability to coninually do that as compared to companies with staggered growth and lagging patterns to them. In my opinion, continual gradual improvement, in many metrics, over time is the cornerstone of a highly functioning company.

Take a look on Slides 10 and 11 of the Investor Presentation of which I have provided a link. You will see the graphs going in all the right directions over the past decade in all of the following categories:

Funeral Volume
Operating EBITDA
Total Revenues
Operating Net Profit
Average Revenue Per Funeral

In addition you will see the potential of the company as the projected demographics of the number of deaths in Australia and New Zealand are presented and show great opportunity to Death Care companies.

Thirdly, although I’d like to know where the statistics come from, there is a pie-chart showing Propel’s market share of deaths growing to 9% at the same time that the largest provider in Australia and New Zealand, InvoCare, has dropped 4% of market share.

Finally, the presentation points out that Propel Funeral Partners has “Founder led management with significant ownership and industry experience” that has built the company from 1 to 198 locations.

Compare that to InvoCare that was just taken private by one of the biggest private equity companies in the world. . . . They will have resources, but do they have “operational feel” to make use of those resources in the right places? In my opinon, that is a question that bears watching.

On the down-side, I would like more information as to why “Comparable funeral volumes” contracted 6%. Management mentioned a “temporary contraction in industry death rates”. But, is that the only reason?

In conclusion, Propel Funeral Partners seems to be doing things right and is a company to watch in our profession.

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