The public Death Care companies are in the news

December 8, 2025/Business, Finance/

With the advent of increased private equity ownership in the Death Care business there are not a lot of public companies to draw information from that you can compare with your own funeral home. Quite frankly, the only two public companies where I seem able to find “comparable information” with locally owned funeral firms are Service Corporation International (SCI) and Carriage Services.

Interestingly, in the past couple of weeks both of those companies and Death Care supplier Matthews International were all in the news for various reasons. Here’s a short synopsis of why.

First of all, SCI was involved as a participant at the Bank of America Leverage Finance Conference. They were represented there by Senior Vice-President and Treasurer Aaron Foley who took part in a question and answer period with Bank of America Securities Larry Bland. You can read a full transcript of the Q & A here from Seeking Alpha.

There is a lot of information for people interested in Death Care business in the Q & A. I’ll note three items I found somewhat interesting and pretty much on trend with what I’ve heard around the profession in the past year.

Cemeteries have great opportunities going ahead. There is a market for “Premium Memorialization”. Here’s what SCI’s Aaron Foley said about that issue: “Cemetery side has continue(d) to be strong as well. We — as I know that we’ll talk about later, have a dynamic within our pre-need cemetery sales that has large sale dynamics but a core consumer dynamic as well. . . . . . But those large sales make up about 10% to 15% of our total cemetery preneed sales. And we’ve got teams out there that are constantly driving and trying to grow that.” (Editor’s Note: SCI considers sales of $80,000 and over Large Sales”

The Pull-Forward effect on pandemic deaths has probably caught up and we have reached normalcy for death rates. Here’s what SCI’s Foley said about that in the Q&A: “I think where we stand today, it seems that, that has all kind of normalized out. . . . . .As we began our 2025 planning, we came out of this expectation after having seen in ’22, a decline of volume of 6% in ’23, 4% in ’24, we were down 2.5%. We expected 2025 to be about flat to slightly down. . . . . So seeing all those trends together kind of gives me some heart to say, I feel like we’re kind of at this normalized trend now for volume.”

Cremation Growth has started to moderate. Here’s what SCI’s Foley said on that dynamic in the Q&A: “And where we stand at this 58% or so type cremation mix, when we’ve looked at other kind of Western cultures where the cremation mix has seemed to stabilize, that’s around that 70% to 80% type range. And so as we get closer to that, you would expect that, that slope should start moderating. But then when you look at a lot of the cities and urban areas that we do operate in the top 10 or 15, there’s a good chunk of those that are already kind of at or near that 70% to 80% type range. And so we’re expecting less of a pressure from that (growth of cremation) front going forward.”

Matthews International has sold their Warehouse Automation Business for $230 million. As you may know, Matthews International operates in different business segments, with the largest, by revenue, segment its Memorialization Segment. That segment consists of its Matthews Aurora business, The Dodge Company business, and businesses in the cremation and cemetery categories.

According to this information from Globe Newswire, “The proceeds from the transaction, net of taxes and transaction costs, will be primarily used to significantly reduce outstanding debt, further strengthening the Company’s balance sheet and enhancing its capacity to pursue future strategic initiatives.”

Again, according to the press release, “The Warehouse Automation business generated sales of $72 million for fiscal 2025.”

If you follow the public stocks it is hard not to notice that Carriage Services has been on a deliberate plan to modernize not only their businesses but also their business plan and strategic outlook going forward. It appears that what they are doing is being noticed not only by those of us in the Death Care business world but those who rate credit as well.

According to this note, S&P Global has elevated the Carriage Services to a B+ credit rating from a B rating. S&P Global notes this upgrade is reflective of continued operational improvement and an anticipation of lower leverage going forward.

More news from the world of Death Care: