Again, the 15th of the month leads us to re-issue our Top Read articles of the month for our readers —  just in case you missed one of them the first time.

This month two articles dealing with legal issues of Death Care appear as our Top Two articles and for the first-time ever an article has re-appeared on the list for a 2nd time.  The article “Funeral Women Lead is defining a path for the changing face of funeral service” first appeared in August 2025 and had enough readers to be on the August 15 Top Read list.

In what probably signals better SEO rankings for Funeral Director Daily, now – 60 days later — the article is reappearing as one of our Top 5 read articles between September 15 and October 14.  A first for Funeral Director Daily articles!!

Here’s the articles that our readers read most over the past 30 days just in case you missed one:

1. Indiana Court:  “Death Doula” does not need a funeral director license.
2. Arkansas lawsuit questions “Denials of Claims” with “Burial” policies.
3. “Funeral Women Lead” is defining a path for the changing face of funeral service.
4. Another acquisition by Park Lawn Corporation.
5. Titan Casket “Keeps on Keeping on”. . . and growing.

Enter your e-mail below to join the 3,201 others who receive Funeral Director Daily articles daily

“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Funeral Director Daily presents you the final report of our hat trick of financial reports this week.  Today we bring you the results of Matthews International’s operations for the period of January thru March 2025 which is the company’s 2nd fiscal quarter of the year.  Earlier this week we reported on the same period of time for Service Corporation International and Carriage Services. . . . It is the first time in my writing of Funeral Director Daily that I can remember having three quarterly reports coming out in the same week. . .

In any regards, there is a lot to digest in the Matthews International report.  As we always point out, Matthews is a diversified company with one of their three segments involved in Death Care.  That segment includes a cremation business that builds crematories, a wholesale casket business known as Matthews Aurora, and a segment dedicated to cemetery memorials and markers, as well as a complete line of cremation products.

For the 2nd Quarter of 2025 Matthews reported that their Memorialization Segment had revenues of $205.6 million which is down about 7.5% from the same period in 2024.  Furthermore, the company states that the Memorialization Segment has 6-month sales revenue of $396.1 million as compared to sales of $430.2 million for the first six months of fiscal 2024 — that is a drop of about 8.0%.

Here’s how Matthews International explained that sales slide in prepared remarks in a press release, that you can access here, on the company’s 2nd Quarter, “The Memorialization segment decline primarily resulted from lower unit volumes of caskets, cemetery memorials, and cremation equipment, partially offset by improved price realization. Lower casketed deaths resulting from the continued normalization of death rates post-pandemic impacted the segment’s sales compared to a year ago.”

In essence, it seems to me that, first of all, there were less casketed deaths in the quarter, but it also seems to say, “We raised prices and then sold less”.  In my opinion, that is probably a strategy that will not play well in today’s market.

The Matthews Dilemma:  In the press release about the 2nd Quarter 2025 results Matthews CEO Joseph Bartolacci also makes this comment, “The Company’s comprehensive evaluation of strategic alternatives for our entire portfolio remains ongoing. The Board and I firmly believe the inherent value of the Company is well above current trading levels and, over the next several months, we intend to identify the appropriate path to unlock this shareholder value. . ”

Matthews International, in the latest report, state a 6-month Net Loss before Income Taxes of over $17 million as compared to the same period of 2024 when they reported a $4.8 million positive income in the same category.

In getting to that equation, not only has the Memorialization Segment seen reduced year-over-year sales in 2Q25 but so has the Industrial Technologies Segment of the business — which had a sales decrease of 30.4%.  The only segment that had an increase was the SGK Brand Solutions Segment, which increased sales by about 6.2% year over year.

However, as this recent press release indicates, Matthews International has recently sold what appears to be about a 60% equity interest in the SGK Brand Solutions Segment of the company.

Related Article —  “Matthews International sells SGK Brand Solutions”.  Pennsylvania Business Report (PA)

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  As a Death Care publication I look at the business situation at Matthews International with a wonder of how will it all turn out.  The SGK Brand Solutions Segment sale should bring in some much needed capital which one would expect would be used to turn around the revenue declines at the Memorialization and Industrial Technologies segments.

It should also be noted that CEO Bartolacci made this comment about the sales in the Industrial Technologies Segment, “. . .demand and interest in our energy storage solutions are regaining strength as customer quotes since early February 2025 have exceeded $100 million.”   That fact would also be a positive development in getting the company back on track.

With total company sales down about 10% for the first six months of Fiscal Year 2025 ($829.4 million as compared to $921.2 million for the first six month os FY2024) I would expect that there is some pressure from stockholders to turn things around.

In my opinion there is a hope that the energy storage solutions that Matthews has invested in turns out to be a viable winning product and I would also expect some type of move to regain positive momentum in the Death Care/Memorialization segment as well.

I expect the 2nd half of Matthews International’s 2025 fiscal year, and the decisions made in that time period, to quite  possibly be the most significant and decisive six months in charting the future plans and strategies for the company’s next decade.

More news from the world of Death Care:

Enter your e-mail below to join the 3,147 others who receive Funeral Director Daily articles daily:

“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”