Security National Financial CEO on their Memorial Segment: “Growth. . .is our goal”

April 11, 2024/Finance/

It took awhile, but Security National Financial Corporation (SNFC) finally got around to posting the results of the company’s 2023 year just last week. And, there is no doubt that SNFC’s Memorial Segment was one of the highlights of that report as that segment reported 10% revenue growth and 38% Earnings before Taxes growth as compared to the previous year.

Here’s what Scott Quist, Chairman of the Board, President, and CEO of SNFC said about the Memorial Segment in this press release, “As death rates stabilized throughout 2023, and as we implemented renewed emphasis on operational efficiencies, our Cemetery and Mortuary segment had its best year ever, earning nearly $8,500,000. Needless to say, we are very pleased with those results”.

Quist went on to say, “In our Memorial segment we have added key personnel, who we believe will drive growth and improve operations. To be sure, growth in this environment is expensive, but is nevertheless our goal.”

The company’s Cemetery and Mortuary segment reached revenues of over $31.9 million for the year and as CEO Quist mentioned, Earnings before Taxes of $8.5 million.

Security National’s Life Insurance Segment, which I believe holds the company’s preneed insurance division and the company’s insurance assignment business, also posted excellent results with a 9.5% growth in revenues over 2022 and 78% Earnings before Taxes growth. The division’s earnings moved north of $25 million for 2023 after earning about $14.2 million in 2022.

Finally, it wasn’t all profits for SNFC as the third leg of their business enterprise, the Mortgage Segment, moved to a lower revenue and loss on that revenue for 2023 after being profitable in 2022. CEO Quist said this of the Mortgage Segment’s struggles, “. . . the increased interest rates continued to have a devastating effect on our mortgage loan business with volumes falling roughly an additional 35% below 2022’s already decreased markets, with the net result being that our Mortgage segment lost $17,500,000″.

All in all, the company’s performance, dragged down by the Mortgage Segment, produced 18% less revenue in 2023 than in 2022 and produced Earnings before Taxes of about $16.3 million in 2023 as compared to 2022’s earnings of $34.3 million.

Funeral Director Daily take: We’ll confine our comments to the Memorial Segment of SNFC. Over the last couple of years we’ve seen it grow to a pretty good $31 million revenue division. Back in 2022, as you can see from this article, Security National Financial Corporation purchased their first funeral home outside of their Utah/Northern California base.

If the 2023 financial results are in any way an indication of how that transaction has worked out you can understand why CEO Quist makes the comment about “growing” being the goal.

We think that SNFC is perfectly situated to make death care growth a reality. Interest rates won’t be high forever which will bring back the mortgage business to profitability and the life insurance market will also provide available funds to the Memorial Segment in their growh aspirations. Finally, being a public company they have plenty of ways to access cash to be able to keep costs of acquisitions from being debt heavy.

The company has chosen to be measured, thorough, and patient in their growth decisions. . . .I expect that same modus operandi will prevail as they grow out their death care segments.

Disclaimer — The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a stockholder in Security National Financial Corporation.

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