Pure Cremation’s private equity owner putting the business up for sale

October 13, 2025/Cremation, Finance/

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, is beginning a process to sell the company.

Pure Cremation, arguably the most financially successful start-up in Death Care business history started in 2015 by husband/wife founders Bryan and Catherine Powell. The timing was evidently perfect for the business which serviced the cremations of Death Care clientele who preferred “simple services with no mourners present”.

That type of service, now christened “Direct Cremation” has grown exponentially since that time in Great Britain, somewhat driven by a combination of price, simplicity, and a decline in religious funeral traditions.

The Powells were quick to learn of the value of Preneed and Pre-arrangements for Pure Cremation. They employed an aggressive marketing campaign for Preneed with an advertising budget stressing the Pure Cremation “No fuss” cremation options. According to this 2022 article from Sky News, they sold over 65,000 preneed policies in 2021. In my opinion, greatly increasing the value of the company.

While no purchase price was, to my knowledge, ever reported when private equity company Epiris purchased Pure Cremation in July 2023, Sky News articles estimated that the company was worth “up to US$ 533 million” at the time.

The above linked KillBait article suggests “Although the current owners (Epiris) are targeting a sale worth upwards of £500 million (US$ 667 million), estimates suggest the business could fetch as much as £700 million (US$932 million) based on its profitability.

Here is the July 31, 2023, press release from Epiris announcing that they had purchased Pure Cremation.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: From my point of view “Growth Companies” are companies that increase revenue and value greatly in a short period of time. They do so, in many cases, because they have invented new “widgets” that consumers prefer over other options. For instance “Vizio” creates “smart TV’s” that consumers now prefer over old analog television sets. The rapid growth of Vizio, which is owned by WalMart, certainly would qualify the company, in my book, as a “Growth Company”.

As an aside here. . . .just think of the opportunities for WalMart to build relationships with those free (advertiser supported) content streaming companies such as Tubi, Pluto, and others. WalMart can probably make agreements to advertise their products on those streaming services in return for the opportunity for those services to be “imbedded” in the Vizio product. As long as that Vizio smart TV is in the family room WalMart can probably arrange to have low-cost access to advertising and the opportunity to customize (through AI) those ads to the content a viewer watches. No wonder they sell those TVs so inexpensively — they are not only viewing screens but advertising mechanisms set up right in your television-watching room for WalMart.

Back to the article, compare that thought process of a “Growth Company” with funeral home public companies such as Service Corporation International and Carriage Services. . . . who I look at as mature companies whose operations and finances, in my opinion, operate more like utility companies. That is, they are “Slow-growth”, generally through acquisitions, funded by debt rather than high-growth cash-flow, without the fast-growing “new widget” or idea that could propel them into “Growth companies”.

In my opinion, Pure Cremation is somewhat different and exhibits itself as more of a “Growth Company” that can fetch a higher valuation for its company because of the long-range, hypothetical growth potential based on the “new widget” of Direct Cremation coupled with aggressive Preneed marketing and sales.

Again, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with “slow, methodical growth” of a business. However, businesses need to know what they are. Later in this article is a chart that I made of four public Death Care stocks along with a couple of “new widget” growth companies. Again, in my opinion, “Growth Companies” have a characteristic of “higher potential gains accompanied by more financial risk” and companies that operate in a field such as traditional Death Care and have “Slow-Growth” characteristics of “slower growth and less financial risk”.

The chart below is representative of that phenomena. It shows the annual revenue of the companies that comprise the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI) and two other “new widget” public growth companies. It also shows the value of those companies as indicated by Market Capitalization (Defined as the Stock price x Number of Outstanding shares of stock). (Note: All values come from Seeking Alpha data as of October 9, 2025.)

Again, at least from my perspective, it is very easy to see that the Death Care companies do not have a high valuation in relation to the revenues that they bring in — more than likely because of their “slow-growth” perception to investors. I see that is where Pure Cremation differs from them in that they have the growth expectation of the consumer’s increased use of “Direct Cremation” raising their value.

Market Capitalization of Death Care Companies and “True Growth” Companies

At any rate, it will be interesting to see who might be the purchaser of Pure Cremation. It very well could be a public company that wants to add a perceived “high growth” company to its portfolio.

Disclosure: The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, Security National Financial Corporation, ATS Spacemobile, and Applied Digital Corporation.

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