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.

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Maybe there is something to the ongoing prediction that a whole lot of funeral homes will be changing hands in the next 3 to 5 years.  Barely after we were able to get a press release from Park Lawn Corporation out about a funeral home/cemetery expansion in New Mexico we received this press release announcing the sale of the Wages and Sons Funeral Homes in Georgia to Park Lawn Corporation.

According to the press release which we received on Monday, October 6, 2025:

“Park Lawn Corporation (“Park Lawn“), is pleased to announce that, effective today, it acquired substantially all of the assets of Atlanta Crematory located in Stone Mountain, Georgia; Cremation Society of Georgia located in Atlanta, Georgia; Wages & Sons Funeral Home located in Stone Mountain, Georgia; Wages & Sons Funeral Home Gwinnett Chapel located in Lawrenceville, Georgia; and Wages & Sons Gwinnett Chapel Crematory located in Lawrenceville, Georgia (collectively “Wages“). This transaction strengthens Park Lawn’s presence in the greater Atlanta, Georgia market through the addition of two (2) stand-alone funeral homes as well as a cremation focused provider.”

Jennifer W. Hay, Chief Executive Officer of Park Lawn Corporation made this prepared comment about the transaction in the press release, “We are excited to expand our presence in the State of Georgia through the strategic acquisition of the Wages businesses. For years, these businesses have been trusted pillars in their communities, recognized for their compassionate service and care. We are honored to partner with Jeffrey to carry this legacy forward. We warmly welcome each of the Wages businesses and their esteemed staff into the Park Lawn family, and we look forward to continuing their tradition of excellence in serving the families of the greater Atlanta area.”

Here is the website for the Wages and Sons Funeral Homes & Crematories

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  Just like the title of the hit song, “I’m a Believer” when it comes to the prediction that there will be many funeral homes changing hands in the forseeable future.  Not only are there many current family funeral home owners reaching the age of retirement but many of those firms have no next-of-kin interested in continuing as the next generation in the funeral business.  That lends itself to the eventuality of many funeral homes coming to market and many opportunities for current operators to expand their businesses with a “right-time”, right-facility”, “right-location” acquisition.

I’m guessing we will continue to hear about acquisitions as we move farther into the 4th Quarter of the year.  First of all, it is convention time and many firms like to have the momentum of acqusition announcements rolling into the convention where they get a chance to visit face-to-face with many targets.  Secondly, the process of offer/acceptance, due diligence, and closing takes some time so the firms we hear being acquired at this time of the year were probably companies on the market at the beginning of the year, a time many firms take their firms to the consolidators.

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According to this press release from Park Lawn Corporation, the funeral home and cemetery consolidator added what they call their Taos Memorial Gardens adjacent to their existing DeVargas Funeral Home in Taos, New Mexico.

In a prepared statement from the press release Park Lawn Corporation Chief Executive Officer Jennifer W. Hay made this comment on the completion of the project, “This beautiful, two-acre greenfield cemetery is located directly adjacent to our DeVargas Funeral Home of Taos and allows us to better serve families experiencing loss by providing a comprehensive means of celebrating, remembering, and permanently memorializing their loved ones in one location. . . . . .We are thrilled that it is now open and ready to serve the Taos community.”

According to an archived edition of the Taos News, “(The) DeVargas (family) sold the business in 2017 to The Signature Group, which was then acquired in 2018 by Park Lawn Corporation.

Here is the website for the DeVargas Funeral Home and Taos Memorial Gardens.

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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”

In this very brief press release issued out of Toronto, Ontario, last weekend funeral home and cemetery operator Park Lawn Corporation announced that they had acquired two free-standing funeral homes in Colorado’s Western Slope.  The press release announced that they had purchased substantially all of the assets of Hood Mortuary located in Durango, Colorado and in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

When you look at the website of Hood Mortuary, which you can access here, it appears that these two funeral homes were under common ownership.

Jennifer Hay
Park Lawn CEO

Jennifer W. Hay, Chief Executive Officer of Park Lawn Corporation made these prepared comments in the press release, “We are pleased to deepen our Colorado presence through the strategic acquisition of the Hood businesses.  These outstanding businesses will allow us to better serve the communities of the Western Slope and will be an excellent addition to our existing portfolio of high-quality businesses in Colorado.” 

According to the press release, Park Lawn Corporation operates businesses in two Canadian provinces and 17 of the United States.

Park Lawn Leadership Changes —  This is the first press release we have seen from Park Lawn Corporation that lists Ms. Hay as the Chief Executive Officer.  For the last several years Mr. J. Bradley Green had been in that position.

I first learned in late April that Mr. Green was no longer with Park Lawn Corporation.  To date, at least that I can find on their website, the company has issued no public press release on Mr. Green’s departure nor Ms. Hay’s ascension to the top position at Park Lawn Corporation.  The last notice that we had on leadership changes at Park Lawn Corporation was a press release on September 10, 2024, about one month after the company was taken private.  Funeral Director Daily published this article on those personnel moves on September 12, 2024.

The Female Leaders — Jennifer Hay joins Lilly Donohue as CEO’s of two of the largest four funeral home and cemetery consolidators in North America.  Lilly Donohue has been, for the past couple of years, the CEO of Everstory Partners, a private company operating over 450 funeral home and cemetery locations in North America and Puerto Rico.

LIlly Donohue
Everstory CEO

While Everstory Partners and Park Lawn Corporation are now private companies and revenue numbers are somewhat hard to come by, I don’t think it is a stretch to suggest that Service Corporation International, Everstory Partners, Carriage Services, and Park Lawn Corporation are the four largest funeral home/cemetery businesses (by revenue) in North America.

On the topic of female leadership, here’s an article on the Lisa Baue led movement for women’s leadership in funeral service.  There is no doubt that the number of women in funeral service is greatly increasing and Hay, Donohue, and Baue have the opportunity with their positions to promote and increase female leadership in the profession.

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Back in early June of this year (2024) many of us were surprised by this announcement that public funeral home and cemetery operator Park Lawn Corporation (PLC) had agreed to be acquired and taken private by a group known as Veridian Holdings.  Probably most consequential in that announcement was that one of the partners in the buy-out agreement was preneed funeral home insurance company Homesteaders Life.

The announcement revealed that Canadian private equity firm Birch Hill Equity Partners Management would join Homesteaders Life as partners in the limited partnership.

The published price for the buy-out and take private move was CAN$ 26.50 per share making the transaction total about CAN $1.2 billion, which when equated to the US dollar at the time would equal a trasaction valued at about US $871 million.

On August 9, 2024, a press release from Park Lawn Corporation announced that the transaction had been concluded and Park Lawn Corporation would now be operating as a private company owned by a group that included Homesteaders Life and Birdh Hill Equity Partners Management.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  This marks the 2nd straight year that our “Business Story of the Year” involved a take private movement involving a private equity company.  Here’s a re-cap of our story for 2023 when Batesville was sold to private equity group Long Range Capital for a reported $761 million.

There seems to be a lot of money in private equity at this time as other Death Care companies had preceeded the Park Lawn Corporation sale.  In prior years we have seen the following public funeral home and cemetery operating companies be purchased by private equity groups:  StoneMor (now re-named Everstory), Dignity plc, and InvoCare.

Related Article:  Private Equity 2024 Mid-Year Report.  September 2024.  Cherry Bekaert

What makes the Park Lawn Corporation sale interesting is that one of the major parties to the acquisition is a preneed insurance provider — Homesteaders Life.  My guess is that management of that company sees a lot of synergies in owning funeral homes and has moving forward plans of not only bringing in more premium dollars but seeing an interesting path to deploy those premium dollars in investments that can then bring in more premium dollars. . . . . I can see the opportunities. . .

On the other hand, the partnership is not without risk for Homesteaders Life. . . . .some family funeral home owners now may see the company as a competitor (in the funeral business) and not as an ally (as a preneed partner).

In any regard. . . . there are enough sides to this story to be named our “Funeral Director Daily Business Story of the Year”.

Here’s some Funeral Director Daily articles that were published on this transaction:

June 4, 2024:  Park Lawn drops a bombshell:  Company announces it is going private

June 11, 2024:  Is Park Lawn now “In play”?

June 14, 2024:  A Seeking Alpha opinion on the proposed Park Lawn sale

June 18, 2024:  Will SCI take a run at Park Lawn Corporation?

July 10, 2024:  Will Carriage Services be next?

July 29, 2024:  It’s July 29.  Will Park Lawn be going private?  What does that mean for Homesteaders Life?

July 31, 2024:  Park Lawn shareholders approve sale, take-private move.

August 19, 2024:  Where was SCI?

Final Thought:  One thing that occured to me as I looked back over these articles is that for those of you who read Funeral Director Daily to keep tabs on the bigger companies in Death Care, we certainly covered this transaction from all possible angles that we could think of. . . . . certainly more than any other publication.  I think that is part of the reason that Funeral Director Daily continues to move to the forefront of Death Care business readership. . . . . In essence, we don’t just publish the press releases as they come in, we analyze, look into, theorize, and hypothesize almost all that could happen. . . Wondering what could happen and why  . . . . . that’s what makes us different.

Just writing that last paragraph reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. . . .and it is even Death Care related coming from the Ted Kennedy eulogy of his brother Robert (RFK) at his funeral. . . . I’ve thought of it often in my own life. . . . Here is that part of the eulogy:

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:

“Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.”

Join me as we move into 2025 by dreaming big for our nation and world and asking “Why not”?

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You can read in this press release issued yesterday by Park Lawn Corporation (PLC) that, effective yesterday, they added four stand-alone funeral homes to their company via the purchase of two funeral businesses in the suburban geographic area to the west of Chicago, Illinois.

PLC announced the purchase of the Fitzgerald Funeral Home & Crematory of Rockford, Illinois. . . . a firm that operates out of two chapels.  The company also announced the purchase of Burke-Tubbs Funeral Home – Freeport and Burke-Tubbs Funeral Home – Forreston.  Those firms are located in Freeport and Forreston, Illinois respectively.

Here’s what Park Lawn Corporation CEO J. Bradley Green said in a prepared statement in the press release from Park Lawn Corporation, “We are thrilled to expand our operating presence in the State of Illinois through the strategic acquisition of the Fitzgerald and Burke-Tubbs businesses.  We are honored to welcome these esteemed businesses and their dedicated teams into the Park Lawn family.  Their addition to our portfolio enables us to better serve Illinois families with the outstanding care and excellence for which these businesses are known.”

According to information from their respective websites, Fitgerald Funeral Home & Crematory was founded in 1914 and Burke-Tubbs Funeral Homes were founded in 1953.

Funeral Director Daily take:  The privatization of Park Lawn Company certainly has not slowed down their acquisition rate.  Just one month ago, Funeral Director Daily reported on a Park Lawn Corporation acquisition in Texas.  Here is that article.  

According to information contained in the press release, Park Lawn Corporation now operates in two Canadian provinces and 17 states of the United States.

Here is a graphic that shows the Park Lawn Corporation locations.

Here is the website for the Fitzgerald Funeral Home & Crematory

Here is the website for the Burke-Tubbs Funeral Homes

Another funeral home acquisition story —  Smith-Miner Funeral Home continues as “family” business.  Midland Daily News (MI)

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

On Monday of this week Park Lawn Corporation announced that they had continued their Texas acquisition growth with the purchase of the Callaway-Jones businesses located in and around Bryan, Texas.

According to the press release which you can read here, Park Lawn Corporation acquired  “substantially all the assets of Callaway-Jones Funeral Home and Crematory located in Bryan, Texas; Callaway-Jones College Station Funeral Planning Office located in College Station, Texas; Rest-Ever Memorial Park located in Bryan, Texas; and Cozart Funeral Home in Normangee, Texas.” 

Here’s what J. Bradley Green, CEO of Park Lawn Corporation, said in prepared remarks included in the press release, “We are excited to announce our partnership with a highly respected family that is deeply rooted in the Bryan-College Station community. This collaboration not only strengthens our presence in Texas but also enhances our ability to serve our families with the quality and care they expect from us.”

Here is the website for the Callaway Funeral and Cremation Centers.

Here is the website for the Cozart Funeral Home.

Here is the website for the Restever Memorial Park Cemetery.

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

In this press release from Tuesday, September 10, Park Lawn Corporation (PLC) CEO J. Bradley Green announced both that the PLC leadership team had some changes to it and also that the company had acquired operating locations in North Carolina and Texas.

Jay Dodds
Park Lawn Corporation

In probably the most noticeable move of the executives, it was announced that Jay Dodds “has elected to step away from his role as President and Chief Operations Officer but will remain an important member of the Executive Leadership Team as the Chief Strategy Officer”.  According to CEO Green, “. . .Jay will be instrumental in advancing our strategic objectives well into the future”.   

Other moves by Park Lawn in the executive suite include the appointment of Jennifer Hay as President and General Counsel.  According to the press release “Ms. Hay joined Park Lawn in 2018 and has served in various leadership capacities, most recently as Chief Strategy Officer and General Counsel.”  CEO Green said this about that appointment, “. . . With her diverse set of skills and experience, in her new role, she will work to more deeply support each of the functional areas of the business including the operations and sales functions as we continue to execute on our long-term strategy.” 

Finally, it was announced that Mathew Forastiere has been appointed to sere as the Chief Operations Officer.  According to the press release, “Mr. Forastiere is a licensed funeral director and embalmer who has worked in the profession for over twenty-five years.  He joined Park Lawn in 2018 and has served in a variety of senior operational leadership positions since that time.” 

Acquisitions Continue —  Park Lawn Corporation has been a privately held company for about one month now, but they show no signs of a stop in growth.  The same press release announced that they had purchased one funeral home and two cemeteries in North Carolina and also purchased the Wilkirson-Hatch-Bailey Funerals & Cremation of Waco, Texas.  That acquisition adds one funeral home to their Waco area operations.

Funeral Director Daily take:  Over the years I’ve got to know both Jay Dodds and Brad Green and, in my book, they are  good people.  Years ago when I was looking to exit the funeral business, the two of them operated a start-up funeral home consolidation company known as Signature Group.  And, they were interested in my funeral home.

I have great memories of hosting them for an evening in my community in Minnesota on a snowy, cold, January evening.  With both of them being from Houston I can remember their surprise at crispness of the cold and the beauty of the white as can be snow.

Brad Green
Park Lawn CEO

I chose to affiliate with a group other than Signature Group, but Jay and Brad have stayed in touch over the years.  And, as successful as they have become they have never refused to take a call from this small operator with a question about operations or some other thought.  As they change their C-suite around, work for a private company as compared to a public company, and continue their work in the Death Care realm I continue to wish them much success and expect Jay Dodds will be an asset in whatever position he works in.

And, I’m guessing Mr. Dodds is pretty excited about his native Nebraska Cornhuskers cracking the NCAA Football Top 25 this week.  Unfortunately, with the expansion of the Big Ten Conference and some of the scheduling changes because of that, my Minnesota Gophers do not get the Cornhuskers on our schedule in 2024 and a chance for the Gophers 6th straight victory over the team from Nebraska!!!

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The American stock market closed on Thursday, March 28, 2024, for the last time in the calendar of the 2024 First Quarter.  If you look at the results so far for the overall market for these first 3 months you would have to say that the results of the 1st Quarter as to the growth has been very good —  the Dow Jones Industrials have gained at a 5.6% clip, NASDAQ at an 8.0% rate, and the S&P 500 has increased right at 10%.  It would be probably pretty correct to say that anybody who has had investments in equities has had a pretty good quarter.

As per the graphic shown below it has been almost all segments of the economy that has shown equity growth.  Communication and Technology sectors, buoyed by the emergence of the future potential of Artificial Intelligence in our world, have seen incredible 15.6% and 12.5% increases respectively and even “old-world” economics of Energy and Industrials have grown at an over 10% rate.

The laggard of the market has been Real Estate as it is the only “major” sector to be in negative growth territory.

What about Death Care services?  Where do they land?

In these lists of “Major” sectors I am guessing that Deth Care would be a subset of Healthcare, Consumer staples, or Consumer diecretionary purchases.  And, those sectors are among the smallest gainers — although growth at 4.8% of higher for a single quarter is still pretty good.

However, when you look at the public death care stocks by themselves as a unit, you will find that they actually had a loss of 1.1% for the quarter.  The Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI) which consists of one share of stock for each of the five public companies in the Death Care realm — Matthews International, Security National Financial Corporation, Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, and Park Lawn Corporation — slid from a combined price of $154.10 on December 31, 2023, to $152.52 on March 28, 2024. . . . a quarterly loss of 1.1%.

Here’s the individual companies and their stock prices on those dates:

Why is Death Care trailing other sectors? —  That’s a really good question but I think there are some reasons why investors have overlooked Death Care as an investible growth vehicle.  Some reasons may be valid and some may not be, but here’s what I think.

Small Sample Sizes —  There are only five companies that comprise the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index.  There are literally hundreds of companies that comprise the other asset sectors listed above.  That makes a great deal of difference. I believe that the DCI sector is not so much a sector. . as it is the “additive summation” of a few “individual” public companies involved in Death Care.  I also believe that these companies are looked at “individually” for their promise rather than the DCI looked at as a “sector” for its promise.

Differing companies — The public Death Care companies are different from each other and really don’t fit into a “box” of sameness.  For instance, Matthews International, in my opinion is much more like an industrial company being a manufacturer and supplier to, not only the funeral home and cemetery markets, but to other markets as well.  Security National Financial Corporation, while owning and operating funeral homes, is also in the finance,  mortgage, and insurance businesses.

And, while SCI, Carriage Services, and Park Lawn Corporation are all in the funeral, cremation, and cemetery businesses, they have different structures, sizes, acquisition strategies, ambitions, and balance sheets which are somewhat a blueprint of how they operate.  So, while they “do” the same thing, the companies are all different.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Challenges investors see in Death Care —  I owned and operated a funeral home and know that there are daily challenges in operations.  Efficiency was the “big key” for me and I always was working to improve the margins between what I could sell services for and what they cost me to provide. . . . and we didn’t have an increasingly expensive overhead.

From my point of view, I think potential investors see funeral homes as being challenged right now with exploding overhead expenses — everything from costs of labor, to costs of loans, to costs of utilities.  And, on the other end of the spectrum they see a growth in lower cost services such as Direct Cremation with no services challenging the ability to grow revenues being brought in.

Furthermore, when you look at the corporate funeral home operations they also have the challenge of containing overhead expenses at the corporate level.

Finally, at the end of the day, it is about profits.  My dad has been gone for 47 years but he used to tell me as a teenager, “Stock prices are eventually all a function of profits or profit potential.”   When I look a the Seeking Alpha Income Statements from the funeral home/cemetery operators — SCI, Carriage Services, and Park Lawn Corporation — all of them show less “Earnings from Continuing Operations” for the year 2023 than they did in 2022.  That also presents some challenges.

There are some positives, however.  First of all, Death Care is relatively stable in an environment where many investors are looking for stability.  And, while margins are lessening there is still the anticipation of a higher number of death calls coming from the aging of the Baby Bomer population.

So, some of the Death Care stocks have had a positive 1st Quarter and some have had a negative 1st Quarter in companies that virtually do the same thing.  Why?   I believe, in those cases, the stock price is about history and potential of the individual company more so than the industry or profession as a whole.

Related article — How the U.S. stock market rocketed through the First Quarter.  Reuters

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