SCI’s 3Q Report continues solid run

October 29, 2021/Finance/

Service Corporation International (SCI), the largest funeral home and cemetery operator in North America reported their 3rd Quarter 2021 financial results on Wednesday. You can see them for yourself here.

Here’s some of what Tom Ryan, Service Corporation’s CEO said of the 3Q 2021 results, “Today we are reporting another strong quarter with earnings . . . . .growth in adjusted earnings per share is primarily driven by significant increases in the revenues and gross profits of both our funeral and cemetery operating segments.”

In those results the company announced that their 3Q revenues grew to $1.034 billion as compared to 2020’s 3Q revenues of $918.2 million — an increase of 12.6% for that period. For the nine months ending with September 30, 2021, the company announced that they have done $3.099.9 billion in revenue as compared to $2.541 billion for the first nine months of 2020 — an increase of $558.7 million or almost 22%.

Tom Ryan
SCI CEO

SCI’s 3Q financial results were so impressive that the company has announced that they are raising their Earnings per Share Outlook to a range of $4.15 – 4.45 per share from the previous outlook of $3.20 – 3.50 per share.

In reading the report we also found some really impressive operating measures for SCI. For instance, the combination in their “Comparable Funeral Results” section included the fact that existing operations increased their 3Q services performed from 89,619 in 3Q 2020 to 92,749 in 3Q 2021 (a 3.5% increase) combined with an increase of “Revenue per service” numbers at those locations of 7.6% ($380 per service) to greatly increase total revenue. Funeral revenue at existing operations increased almost $70 million or 13.6% as a result of that equation.

We also noticed the following from the 3Q 2021 Report:

At Need Cemetery property revenue at existing locations increased by almost $12 million or 34.9%.
The company’s interest expense dropped about 12%, representing about $15 million, for the first nine months of 2021. This is probably from a combination of debt going off the books with previously mentioned rate reductions through re-financings of current debt at lower interest rates
Preneed funeral sales grew by over $50 million, or 21.6%, in 3Q 2021. Interestingly, it grew by about 23.6% at the company’s non-funeral home sales channel, such as SCI Direct. Management made this comment about the preneed sales increase, “The elevated comparable preneed funeral sales production during the quarter was bolstered by continued growth in digital and direct mail leads, as well as the return of local marketing events and in-person seminars.”
SCI’s Total Comparable Cremation Rate percentage (all SCI channels) grew to 59.2% from 58.5%over the course of one year.