Seeking Alpha contributiing author Daniel Jones published an article this week titled, “Service Corporation International:  You might want to hold this one until your last breath”.

It is a very interesting article that uses both SCI financial data and United States birth and death data to make a case that SCI, as a company is probably a good investment for the long haul.  The article also makes good use of graphs to tell its story.  You can access the article here.

As always, Funeral Director Daily does not take a particular side of the issues presented other than to present them to you for your own opinions.  Here are some quotes from the article:

• “Service Corporation International remains a dominant player in the US and Canadian funeral and cemetery industry, with strong growth prospects.”

• “SCI’s revenue, profits, and cash flows continue to rise, driven by population growth and increasing demand for death care services.”

• “Unless you expect a world-ending catastrophe, you can expect revenue growth achieved by Service Corporation International to continue for the long haul.”

• “While many countries, like Japan, South Korea, and China, are seeing populations decline, the US continues to see population growth, largely because of immigration.”

Steady Growth of U.S. Population from 1950 to 2024 as shown in the article

The above chart shows the steady population growth in the United States from 1950 to the present.  The article states, “In 2024, it (the U.S. population) hit an all-time high of 345.4 million. That’s up an astounding 22.7%, or 64.9 million, since the year 2000.”

And, here is another chart from the article which shows a continuing growth of population up to 2050 where the hypothesis is that the  United States population will reach 380.8 million —  that’s another 10% increase from 2024.

U.S. population projected growth to 2050 with a projected rise in Median Age. (Image from Seeking Alpha article)

Here is a quote from the article that pertains to the above chart and the idea of the country’s Median Age rising, “It’s unclear what the future holds. We do know that, by 2050, the US population is expected to grow to 380.8 million. The median age is forecasted to grow to about 41.9 years. Currently, the Congressional Budget Office expects an overall decline in the mortality rate. But not everybody agrees with that. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, for instance, expects issues like drug use to challenge the common narrative that mortality rates will actually decline even as the population of the US continues aging.”

Author Daniel Jones somewhat combines the idea of more deaths with the idea of SCI as North America’s largest Death Care provider to make this statement, “But what is undeniable is that a growth in the overall size of the population is guaranteed to cause the number of deaths to grow. This certainly bodes well for a company such as Service Corporation International.”

Related Article — Here’s a recent article from CBS New’s 60 Minutes Overtime that questions what might happen if the United States continues to see a decline in natural born birth rates.  It is titled “The Trends behind the historically low U.S. Birth Rate” and can be accessed here.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  I think Seeking Alpha author Daniel Jones has a good handle on Service Corporation International as a company and on his insights into the United States population dynamics.  Putting those two things together easily leads one to believe that if you are the biggest in a growing industry, as that industry grows with opportunity, your company should enjoy the most growth.

That makes a lot of sense. . . .But I’ve also learned over my life that things don’t always happen in a vacuum.  In this case there are a host of other issues surrounding Death Care choice that it is not as easy as saying 1 + 1 = 2.

While Service Corporation International seems to be making all the right moves in moving in line with society’s Death Care choices — such as making arrangements with at least one of the professions natural organic reduction providers —  there is no guarantee that Death Care clientele will continue to use traditional funeral homes in the same numbers as they do today.  And, if over the next couple of decades SCI cannot move in sync with what consumers want. . . . a larger population (and more deaths) may be no help at all to them.

In my opinion, Death Care is now all about staying relevant with the consumers you are going to serve.  Yes, with the caveat that it is also somewhat geographic location related, the more deaths in your area the more business you should have.  However, I also think Death Care is in a unique position among consumers where habits and methods of use are changing and growth, even with more deaths, will take the right “moves” by existing Death Care businesses to continue to grow.

Disclaimer — The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Service Corporation International.

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

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

Funeral Director Daily published this article about 17 months ago that was headlined “Carriage Services’ Mel Payne transitions to advisory role at company”.   The article went on to say that Mr. Payne, who was the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Carriage Services had been in those positions since 1991.

If you have watched Carriage Services since the time of that article 17 months ago you would notice that the leadership team of Carlos Quezada, John Enright, and Steve Metzger have been, in my words, “putting the house in order“.  It appears that in the last year and a half the leadership team has been busy building partnerships with suppliers, strategically reducing debt, and selectively divesting of funeral homes and cemeteries that don’t seem to fit the company’s criteria.

One of the criticisms of Carriage Services in that time of adjustment has been that some in the investment community have not had the patience that the management team has had about future acquisitions to grow the company.  The 2nd Quarter 2025 report, that you can read here, should quiet that group down as in the report Carriage Vice-Chairman and CEO Carlos Quezada made this prepared comment, “. . . .we are excited to announce that we are under contract to acquire new businesses, which we anticipate will close this quarter. Combined, these premier locations served more than 2,600 families and generated more than $15 million in revenue last year. We are excited to return to our long-term strategy of adding shareholder value through high-quality acquisitions.”

The financial results for the quarter for Carriage Services show Total Revenue slightly down — from $102.3 million in 2Q24 to $102.1 million in 2Q24.  However, if you deduct a $2 million revenue figure in 2Q24 for “Divestment” Revenue, then Total Revenue would be up about 2%.

For the first-half of 2025 Total Revenue came in at $209.2 million . . slightly up from the first-half of 2024 where Total Revenue came in at $205.8 million.  Again, the 2025 revenue number would is more impressive when you consider that one-time “Divestment” revenue from the first-half of 2024 is about $3.3 million greater than the same category in 2025.

When it comes to Net Income from Consolidated Operations Carriage Services 2Q25 number in that category came in at $11.7 million as compared to the 2Q24 number of $6.2 million. For the first 6-months of 2025 Carriage showed a Net Income of $32.6 million as compared to the 2024 Net Income for the same period of $13.2 million.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  What do they say?  Patience is a virtue?  I think that this report continues to illustrate how the management team at Carriage Services has a plan and are executing on that plan.  And, they believe in what they are doing.

From my point of view, as an outsider but also as an individual stockholder, I can visualize the plan.  To me, it appears that the management team has analyzed the company’s situation and are taking the steps to make it better.  I see a management team that values “quality” over “quantity”.  In June of 2024 Carriage Services stated that they had 165 funeral homes and 31 cemeteries under their umbrella.  In this latest report they have stated that they have 159 funeral homes and 28 cemeteries — that’s almost a 5% reduction in number of facilities.

So, there has been some divestitures of properties for some reason.  Maybe because of underperformance, or maybe a facility was not located in the geographical sphere that the group wants to be in, or maybe the facility was not located in a demographically advantageous area.  Whatever the reason, one number that I ascertain from that is that even with about 5% less facilities the revenue numbers between 2Q24 and 2Q25 are almost equal.

One conclusion to that mathematical equation could be that Carriage Services must be getting, on average, more revenue per location which can only be a positive in my eyes.  And, if you are gaining revenue per location that beats the alternative and one can be hopeful that Carriage can duplicate that feat with the new acquisitions they are pursuing.

Disclaimer —  The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Carriage Services.

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

The end of trading on Monday marked the end of the first-half of the year for stocks.  And, it was a significant day as on Monday the Nasdaq and S&P 500 both recorded All-Time highs in their numbers.  However, as you may know, the road to the record in 2025 was not a straight climb without a little descent put into the numbers on the way to the records.

In 2025, stocks moved very high into February and then receded. . . and further receded after President Trump announced his “Liberation Day” of tariffs on foreign country products coming into the United States.  As that issue worked its way through the markets and other contemporary issues such as inflation, debt, interest rates, and the potential tax bill moved forward the markets took a turn for the better culminating with those record highs on Monday.

At the end of the day following that roller-coaster ride of six months the major indexes settled up for the period as such. . . S&P 500 up 5.10%, Nasdaq up 4.98%, and the Dow Jones Industrials up 3.36%.

Funeral Director Daily’s Death Care Index (DCI) which consists of the the American public companies bringing in a large share of their revenue from Death Care industry sales also rose for the half-year.  However, the DCI lagged the three major indexes with an absolute increase of 0.95% which, when rounded like the other indexes comes in a a 1.0% increase.

The DCI is comprised of four stocks — Matthews International, Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, and Security National Financial Corporation.  One share of each of those stocks was worth a combined total of $159.38 on January 1, 2025, and those same shares climbed to a value of $160.90 as of the close of business on June 30, 2025.

As you can see, Carriage Services was the half-year gains leader among DCI stocks with a 14.78% return.

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

Funeral Director Daily take:  It’s certainly been an interesting six months, not only watching the markets, but watching the world.  I’m guessing that a new president in the Oval Office and how he operates has something to do with the “ups and downs” of today’s market.

As for Death Care specifically, the lack of value movement to the upside or the downside does not surprise me.  I think that there is a lot of anxiety and caution about the direction of Death Care business.  Certainly, direct cremation, do-it-yourself memorial services, and other changes have investors wondering how those decisions will affect traditional funeral homes and cemeteries.  And, on the positive side, I think some investors are expecting technological advances to begin to show financial improvements in Death Care businesses.  I expect as these changes move out into reality and are quantified, public investment in Death Care will eventually move one way or another.

As for the overall market, I don’t remember a time when there seemed to be so many “balls in the air” on the front burner that have some financial or political ramifications to them that can affect the market.  We have inflation, interest rates, debt and deficits, tariffs, tax bills, world peace initiatives, and more that will affect how we do business moving forward  —  and the stock market will be a reflection of how that politics and business, including Death Care, moves forward.

Here’s some articles on the subjects for your 4th of July lakeside reading:

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

We found a recent investment article by Seeking Alpha author Daniel Jones that was published on Sunday, January 12.  When you are in this business as I have been for over 40 years, it is always interesting to see what others have to say about the investment opportunities available in the business’ public markets.

Without an opinion by me, I present this article from Seeking Alpha titled “Service Corporation International remains attractive, in spite of recent underperformance” for your enjoyment and knowledge.

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