Late last week we received this press release that indicates that Park Lawn Corporation acquired eight stand-alone funeral homes in locations spanning the greater Oklahoma City market.  It represents Park Lawn’s entrance into the state of Oklahoma.

The press release announced “Park Lawn Corporation is pleased to announce that, effective December 1^st, it acquired substantially all of the assets of Service Group of Oklahoma (SGOK), a group of businesses consisting of eight stand-alone funeral homes with locations spanning the greater Oklahoma City market.”

Jennifer W. Hay, CEO of Park Lawn made the following prepared comment in the press release about the transaction, “Entering Oklahoma marks an exciting milestone in our growth strategy. These eight locations have deep ties to the communities they serve, and we’re proud to support their continued tradition of excellence.  We are pleased to welcome Chad Vice, John Davenport and the entire SGOK team to Park Lawn.  Their passion, expertise and commitment to service make them an outstanding addition to our organization.”

You can access the Park Lawn Corporation website here.  

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  Acquiring eight established funeral homes around one major city in the United States will certainly add to the numbers of Park Lawn Corporation.  From my point of view, and this is only an anecdotal observation, it seems to me that the large national acquisition and operating companies have almost completely moved on from acquisitions in what I would call Regional Centers and are very much concentrating on what I would term mid-major and major cities almost exclusively.

That strategy makes sense. . . . . the numbers of deaths and the economies of scale make those communities very attractive to the large scale companies that can raise the combination of capital and secure the debt that it takes to acquire them.  It also allows for future “bolt-on” acquisitions in the future that can make those markets even more profitable for the operators.

If that is the strategy it leaves a lot of great communities and their funeral homes, probably outside of America’s largest 50 markets, available for acquisition by the next tier of consolidators — those that compete in a more regional sphere.  That’s good news for those operators.

While the brand names of the eight funeral homes acquired were not listed in the Park Lawn press release, here are the websites of those funeral homes that we believe may be included in the acquisition.

More news from the world of Death Care:

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This article from Yahoo Finance will inform you that the major indexes of the American stock market all closed at record highs last Friday.  During the same week the 3rd Quarter of the year closed and the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI) reported a close that indicated a 3.60% increase for the year-to-date.

Below you will see a chart of the individual four stocks that make up the Funeral Director Daily DCI Index and how they have performed in comparison to the major indexes for the Year-to-Date (YTD) 2025 up to the end of the 3rd Quarter on September 30 2025.  You will notice that the DCI trails every sector with the possible exception of Consumer Staples for stock price appreciation for YTD 2025.  One possible reason for this, however, is the small sample size of public companies with at least a portion of their business in Death Care.

As you can see funeral home, cemetery, and crematory operators Carriage Services and Service Corporation International have had positive results, as far as stock price apprecition goes,  so far in 2025 while the other two members of the DCI, Matthews International and Security National Financial Corporation have seen their stock price drop during the year.  It’s difficult to know why, but both Matthews International and Security National Financial have other operations outside of Death Care which may be holding back their stock appreciation in what has been, as noticed by the stock index gains, a rather robust period for public stock investors.

Market Segments performance for YTD 2025 up to September 30.  Source:  LPL Research Factset

How About the Long-Term:  Just for the fun of it I went back to October 3, 2015, and looked at price appreciation (as recorded on Yahoo Finance) of the major indexes and also of the stocks that make up the Death Care Index.  If you had had $10,000 of either the index or a particular stock on October 3, 2015 and still held the index or stock, here’s what those indexes or stocks would be worth today (10/03/2025):

• Dow Jones Industrials Index:  $28,502
• Nasdaq Composite Index:  $50,780
• S&P 500 Index:  $34,992

And, here’s a chart of the Death Care Index values for the that hypothetical $10,000 investment as of October 3, 2015:

Related Information:

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

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Last year, almost exactly one year ago this week, Funeral Director Daily published this article announcing that Park Lawn Corporation had the regulatory approvals to sell the company to Veridian Holdings L.P. which was a business made up through a partnership of Homesteaders Life and Birch Hill Equity Partners.

Recently, Birch Hill Equity Partners as announced in this article from Yahoo Finance, partnered with Brookfied Asset Management to take Canadian mortgage firm First National Financial private in a structure that appears to be very similar to the Park Lawn transaction.

Again, much like the Park Lawn transaction, the acquired firm took a position that the transaction was good for the shareholders as they are quoted as commenting, “First National Financial says the deal came after a strategic review and that it offers compelling value and liquidity to shareholders”.

You can access the Park Lawn Corporation website here.  As a private company we no longer have access to their financial documents to learn how they may be doing from that perspective but press releases since the sale date have indicated that Park Lawn has added facilities through acquisition in North Carolina, Texas, Illinois, and Colorado.  You can access Park Lawn Corporation press releases here.

Related — Here is the website for Birch Hill Equity Partners

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Last week was Earnings Release week for Service Corporation International (SCI) and readers of Funeral Director Daily are getting their second consecutive article on the company’s performance in this update.  This morning’s article was headlined, “Firing on all cylinders”.

Investor information network Seeking Alpha published an article last week from Lighting Rock Research that you can access here, about SCI and it’s 2nd Quarter 2025 report titled “As steady as she goes”.  It in many ways reaffirms what Funeral Director Daily said about the 2nd Quarter and Half-Year performance of the company so far in 2025 but goes a little bit further making some projections for the future.

In a short sentence Lighting Rock Research makes this comment about the future of SCI, “The company’s stable business model, direct sales transition, and acquisition strategy position it for 5% organic revenue growth from FY26 onward.”

Included in the article is the following chart which the authors use to feature what they believe will be the financial performance of Service Corporation moving forward.  As you can see it projects Revenue, Operating Profits, Net Profits and more through the year 2034.

Projections of SCI’s Revenue, Operating Profits, Net Profits, Free Cash-Flow and more through 2034

Lighting Rock Research mentions two risk factors for SCI going forward.  Here is what they think those may be:

1. In the U.S. market, many Hispanic and Asian customers prefer cemetery services. Due to the Trump administration’s immigration policy, I think some Hispanic and Asian populations might leave the U.S.  If that occurs, the population mix change could pose some growth challenges to Service Corporation..
2. In addition, the gross margin of its cemetery business declined by 110basis points during the quarter, caused by higher sales compensations. Investors need to closely monitor the company’s gross margin in the upcoming quarters to ensure these elevated sales compensation payments do not become a persistent issue.

Funeral Director Daily take:  There has been a lot of anxiety about Death Care moving forward.  The positivity of this article was a refreshing change from some of the bleak predictions of Death Care moving into the future.  I think it shows that the glass is either half-full or half-empty in someone’s opinion.

Lighting Rock Research predicts a “5% organic revenue growth” for SCI annually for the next decade.  In a Death Care world where we see some providers dealing with a Direct Cremation induced revenue decrease that is, in my estimation, a bold prediction that if it rings true indicates a very positive future for SCI.

The projections show an even stronger company going into the future that uses the cash it generates to no only continue growing with acquisitions, but also rewards existing shareholders by reducing the number of shares outstanding through internal stock buy-backs.

As you look at the projection chart, the projections show Revenue going from $4.3 billion to 7.4 billion — a compounded 72% increase in the next ten years.  The projections also show Net Profits more than doubling from $548 million to $1.24 billion in that same time period.

If SCI truly hits those numbers it should mean business is good for Death Care in North America.

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