Public funeral home operator Propel Funeral Partners released their Fiscal Year 2025 results recently and the results which cover the period of July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025, show higher revenue and higher net profits for the company.  On the downside, however, Propel Funeral Partners (PFP) showed a contraction in funeral volumes among “comparable” funeral homes for the year.

As for the revenue and profits for the largest public Death Care company in Australia and New Zealand, the company recorded Revenue of US$ 148.74 million for FY25 as compared to US$137.81 million in FY24 — that’s an increase of about 7.9%.  PFP posted an increase in “Net Profit Before Taxes” of US$ 20.09 million in FY25 as compared to US$ 19.7 million in FY24 — that’s an increase of right at 2.0%.

Propel Funeral Partners did a funeral volume of 22,602 cases in FY25 which is actually 4.4% higher than the previous year.  However, not including new acquisitions and only “comparable” businesses the company reported a decline of 1% of voume in those funeral homes.  And according to their 2025 Full-Year Announcement, that you can access here, that’s on top of a contraction of 6% of “comparable” funeral volumes in FY24.

Again, according to that announcement, PFP added, via acquisition during FY25, three businesses that “focus on their core strategy of acquiring assets and social infrastructure which operate in the Death Care industry in Australia and New Zealand”.  Those businesses included two funeral home operators and a supplier of headstones and monuments.  All acquisitions in FY 25 came in the country of New Zealand where it appears that 65 of Propel’s 205 operating units are located.

In terms of the company’s outlook in their Full-Year Announcement the company made the following comments about what they will benefit from:

•  Favorable demographics in Australia and New Zealand
• PFP’s strong funding position
• Acquisitions to date and other potential future acquisitions

The company also noted that the 2026 fiscal year has started strongly by:

• Record monthly revenue in July 2025 — Monthly revenue of US$ 14.08 million
• Average Revenue Per Funeral growth of 2.7%
• Contributions from recent acquisitions

Click here for the Propel Funeral Partner’s FY 2025 Results Presentation.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  I strongly suggest taking a look at the company’s Results Presentation.  I’ve always thought that comparing what the “Big Boys” are doing with the results of my own operations was a good exercise.

I found two items that would concern me about Propel’s financial operations.  First of all, nobody likes a decline in volume . . . and I believe that the larger operation one operates the more that is a concern.  I say that because a 100-call funeral operation can easily have a 10% increase or reduction simply by the highs or lows of deaths in the area.

However, when you operate 205 facilities in two different countries the numbers are greater and should balance out between one community doing an increase in a year and other operations doing a decrease in services a year.  Simply speaking, you are not just looking at the 12-month results of a 100-call funeral home.  That being said, the 1% decrease in “comparable” services is within a range of potential variances, but I would keep a watch on the number to find out if it becomes a trend.

Secondly, and an issue that many in the retail Death Care business have right now is the “Revenue per service” number.  First of all, an increase in cremation services tends to drive that revenue average down, but the inflationary price pressures funeral homes face means that we cannot allow that number to go down too far.

Propel Funeral Partners mentions that their FY25 Revenue per service US$ 4,427. . . .an increase of 2.3% over FY24.  Propel’s report says that is “in line with inflation”.

Proving my point about comparing data with the public companies —  The following was written in the NFDA Memorial Business Journal and recieved in my Inbox as I was writing this article:

“When it comes to running any type of business, data is worth more than its weight in gold. According to research by McKinsey & Company, companies that make extensive use of their analytics data are nearly three times likelier to have a higher ROI (Return on Investment) than their competition. They’re also 23 times likelier to acquire more customers than their competition and nine times likelier to retain more customers.”

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You’re a funeral home or cemetery owner/operator and you are in the final stages of planning that 2025 business budget.  If you have loans for livery vehicles or building improvements that are either adjustable or coming due in 2025 what can you reasonably expect for interest rates on those loans going forward?

As of today when I write this article the Federal Funds Rate, the rate banks borrow money from the federal government at and banks use as a base when working on their interest rate margins, sits at the 4.50-4.75% rate.  That rate is down from a 5.25-5.50% rate earlier in 2024.

Part of the reason that rate is down is that those who fix the Federal Funds Rate have had the mindset that inflation is coming under control.  However, just last week one of those policy makers who help set the Federal Funds Rate, Michelle Bowman, questioned if inflation is under control and made the point in this article from Reuters that interest rates may be higher for longer.

To that end, Bowman made this statement in that article, “I would prefer to proceed cautiously in bringing the policy rate down to better assess how far we are from the end point, while recognizing that we have not yet achieved our inflation goal and closely watching the evolution of the labor market.”

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Bowman also made this point which infers that, all things being equal, interest rates may continue to be higher.  Here’s what the article said about that inference, “. . .she believes the neutral policy rate – the level of borrowing costs that neither bolsters nor brakes economic growth – is much higher that it was before the COVID pandemic, “and therefore we may be closer to a neutral policy stance than we currently think.”

So, at least from this article I think that it would be wise to budget for levels of our current rates for 2025.  If one budgets for that amount they will probably be safe on the high side for 2025.  And, if the rates do tick down, you then have some extra money in the bank.

When I did my budgeting on interest, and other items, I always preferred to over-budget rather than under-budget.  That way, if I was wrong, it was to my favor and I saved some from my budget numbers rather than being wrong on the other side and having to figure out how to plug the budget hole.

Prime Rate — The Prime Rate as published by the Wall Street Journal sits at 7.75% today.  By definition the Prime Rate is the rate that financial institutions will give their most creditworthy customers at any given time.  Prime Rate is not a national rate and will vary from bank to bank.

Here’s a historical chart of the JP Morgan Prime Rate from 1983 until today.  Their Prime Rate sits at 7.75% today but was as low as 3.25% in March 2020 before the Federal Funds Rates were raised to try to put a stop to inflationary costs.

Related Information —  Sometimes it is interesting to look at what public companies are paying for credit and at least use that as a relative data point when searching out your own credit terms.  While there are no two borrowing situations exactly alike, such as some with physical collateral and some offering no collateral and differing maturity lengths of the debt, the rates and terms given are great points to know when talking with your local banker.  In September both Service Corporation International and Matthews International closed new debt offerings.  You can read about those from company press releases here:

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