Latest / On Deathcare / SCI’s $1B Preneed Surge, Greenbelt Mega-Cemetery Push & Missouri License Battles

Transcript

SCI’s $1B Preneed Surge, Greenbelt Mega-Cemetery Push & Missouri License Battles · On Deathcare

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I am Tony Russo, and this is The Rest,
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: your weekly rundown of news from around funeral service.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Got some cool stories to talk about this week,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm still trying to catch up from just taking one long weekend.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is amazing how stories pile up, even though many of you were confused.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Quote gone, I guess, most of last week at the NFDA convention.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get to it, I want to, as always,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: remind you that this is sponsored by my paid subscribers.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I'm able to do,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm able to do because of The people who support my work support my work.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if you'd like to be one of them,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: you can do that by going to ondeathcare.com and clicking subscribe.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: After you do that, you'll have the opportunity to subscribe to this newsletter,
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: which includes a couple of the podcasts I do and the regular podcasts.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Features and news and breaking updates during the week for anything
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: from zero dollars per month to more than zero dollars per month.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate all the support.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you can support me both morally and materially, so much the better.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: We do have a special thing that I do every Sunday.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have a Sunday column where I talk about some of the stories I'm working
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: on and share some insights that I wouldn't share on the public page,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I guess is the best way to put it.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you can look at all that at ondeathcare.com.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's get into it.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I was joking actually to myself earlier this weekend because I was listening
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: to the SCI earnings call.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't available on Thursday when it came out.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I played it back the way a bank robber would if they wanted to prove they were
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: at a football game or something.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really interesting to just walk around your house with an earnings call
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: in your ear and say, If you guys are taking suggestions over at SCI,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: maybe podcast it.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why not podcast your earnings call?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that it couldn't hurt.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, more people would listen.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that is kind of the point.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's certainly why I do it, because...
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: When these companies put out their earnings report press releases, you know,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: they're just, of course, they're friendly.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're not going to say, you know, they're not going to be apologetic, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're not going to say, well, here are some of the things we said.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't really live up to them, but we're still good.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that isn't, that's not what those press releases are for.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, I think they can not be misleading.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, because I don't think that they're misleading,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: but I think that When you look at a company like SCI as far as something like
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: to invest in or Carriage or Matthews or any of the big public companies,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: that's a different story than if you're looking at them to see if you can see trends
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: or other things that are ground level for people who are in the industry as opposed
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: to people who are investing in the industry.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And There's a ton to be pulled out of the SCI earnings call.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things, they got hit because they didn't grow as much
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: as they said they were going to grow.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: They still grew a lot.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: They did much better this quarter this year than they did this quarter last year,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: but they had to say they were going to make less money.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what I'm looking at talking about.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: SCI said that it was volumes
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: that hurt them, and maybe it was.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of the other things, though, that they pointed out was that there was a drag
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: because of their new program
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: paying their pre-need people a higher salary
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: and a lower commission, and that the disconnect there is significant,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: and that kind of slowed them down.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Paid for a lot of Lunch and Learns.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And by a lot, I mean enough to earn them almost a billion dollars in sales
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: over the course of the last three months.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they had seven,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was $793 million
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: in pre-need sales in the quarter.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it cost them...
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: $7 million in salary.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's top line and there's bottom line, and that is stuff that is important,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: especially if you're an investor.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: But What I've been talking about when it comes to SCI a lot lately,
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: and I just want to continue to point it out, is that they, I mean,
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: they're big enough to play the very long game.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: They don't need a succession plan, right?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're not going to throw out their back, collective backs, you know,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: and need to have someone running their business for a month.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there are certain advantages that come with that,
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: which is that you could take one on the
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And just...
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Expand it.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really the first big story, I think, out of the earnings call.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Setting aside whether they're spending too much, their salespeople are more productive.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And a productive salesperson who sells a pre-need contract
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: to a 40-year-old is worth whatever you're paying them
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: because that 40-year-old is...
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, got plenty of time on their hands.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And those just add up and add up.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of the year, SCI was sitting
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: on $17 billion in pre-need backlog.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nine months later, they're sitting on more than $18 billion.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I actually made a joke about it in the weekly email that I sent.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I said million and billion are very different even though they sound the same.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they sold 1 ,000 million worth
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: of backlog this last nine months even
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: though they were paying out plenty.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that was also interesting is their large cemetery sales Made up
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: a little bit of a difference,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: even though they fell short of their projection
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: and also had to pull back
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: on their estimates.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They had not a bad sales month.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: They don't get to book a lot of their sales for a while, and I think that's okay with them.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there are people who have Incentives tied to the stock price and all that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: But again, setting that all aside, talking about running the funeral business,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: it's really interesting to see how quickly they were able
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: to put Contracts
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: in order just by taking a little bit, not a lot, but not all,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: but taking a lot of the pressure rather of commission-based sales off
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: of their representatives.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the other thing is when you're not paying commission,
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: then you get to keep more of the contract.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just a really interesting approach.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's doing well for them.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have more reporting on it later this week.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, if it's Tuesday, as you're listening to this, it might be out now.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It might be out this afternoon.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do a rundown of just, you know,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: of just the basic stuff that wasn't really included in a lot of the press releases
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: or in really any of the reporting, you know,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: such as there's not much reporting on it for...
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: For funeral directors, there's a lot of reporting on it for investors.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll have a link to their earnings in the show notes.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if I have that story done by the time this comes out on Tuesday morning,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have the link to that as well.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of pre-need type stories as long as we're continuing on that theme.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: A license tied to the Central Missouri Funeral Homes has been not reinstated,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: but a stay of execution has been issued to them.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: The James and Gar Mortuary
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: and the Dent County Memorial Chapel had been ordered closed and their owners ordered
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: to surrender all their licenses.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think there were 11 licenses revoked over the course of the two
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: or three funeral homes in And all of the owners because of discrepancies
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: with their pre-need sales and with their record keeping specifically.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is an old case.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they were put on probation in December of 2025.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And between December of 2025 and September of 2026,
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: they did not do enough of what was required from them.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, they had their licenses revoked now the owner and this is
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: the thing. The owner has been a funeral director for more than 50 years.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but he was on the Missouri State Board of Embalmers
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: and Funeral Directors.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was on the commission for years as part of his service.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what he said was that there were employee mistakes that they were trying to contend with.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why they weren't ready in time for their latest hearing.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they got a stay of execution from the courts.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Which has given them some time to try to continue to reorganize.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, they have to hire a funeral director that's going to be in charge.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And while they get to hold their licenses,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: the funeral director in charge is the one who's going to be making all the decisions
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: and who's going to be going through the pre-need contracts that they have
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: and getting everything in order.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, writing new ones as necessary.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: One of the really interesting things Parts of their original sentence was
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: that they had to turn over all of their pre-need contracts
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: to someone else as well
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: as closing their doors.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so they've been saved from that for now.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, the guy's been at it for 50 years.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess that doesn't mean anything.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that he hasn't been...
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Behaving for 50 years,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: but you suspect that there is probably some sort
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: of minor discrepancy.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: The records are unclear and I don't want to make any accusations
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: because I'm sure it's kind of a mistake.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing that...
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: What troubles me is that, you know,
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of times I, particularly me,
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: will give these funeral commissions a hard time because they're like, oh, well,
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: it's OK. Everybody makes a mistake.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times they don't really enforce, you know,
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: the rules as strictly as maybe they could be enforced.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And this time they did.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the court stepped in and said it's not a problem.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, God forbid there's anything genuinely wrong with these books.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just some sort of misunderstanding about filing dates.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then the public wasn't protected,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: even though they had the opportunity to protect the public.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: My suspicion, though, is since they were able to get this overturned,
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: not overturned, but paused by the court,
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: That they must have presented enough evidence that said, no,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: this is what's wrong and this is how we're fixing it.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're just going too slow.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll continue to follow this story.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully I'll be able to dig up more on it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if I do, I will report back on it here.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: But meanwhile, there's a link to,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I actually wrote up a little story based on all of the other reporting.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll put that in the show notes and you'll find it on deathcare.com
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: in the field notes section.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And along those lines, the Guilford County,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: North Carolina Sheriff's Office has launched a criminal investigation
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: into the operations of Piedmont Memorial Park Cemetery in Greensboro.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: They say they're actively examining the business practices, plot sales,
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: and burial arrangements dating back to January 2019.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Investigators, according to the reporting, are urging local families,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: community members, or anyone to who has interacted with the cemetery, funeral homes,
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: or associated entities during this period to come forward with relevant information.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Officials have specifically requested that individuals retain
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: and preserve any receipts,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: payment records, contracts,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: written agreements related to plot purchases, etc.,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: recognizing the deep emotional gravity of the situation for families
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: and With loved ones resting at the site,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: law enforcement officials have pledged a thorough, sensitive, and objective inquiry.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: The investigation remains active and ongoing.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a line for the Crime Stoppers tip line.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: If anybody has more information,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I put out a little bit of a call in the newsletter.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put it out here as well.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to start to talk about this notion of perpetual care funds
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: and There have been a lot of,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually working on a story that I hope to have out later this week
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: on a cemetery in Pennsylvania that's gone through just three tax sales.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was just saying,
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: you wonder if there is a perpetual care fund and if it is
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: a law, how do cemeteries get overgrown and overrun?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, people are just like, well, we ran out of money and it, it can't be that simple.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if the state isn't going to check, I mean,
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: they got guys checking out there to see if you're speeding, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: They got guys checking to see all sorts of things.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: If perpetual care fund is just going to be a gentleman's agreement
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: between the cemetery owner and his heirs or assigns,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: then, uh, it's not,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: that doesn't work.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have all of these stories about, well, now the cemetery is overrun.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we should just exhume the bodies,
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: move them somewhere else and put up a nice affordable housing complex or put up
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: a well-needed factory of some sort.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not great.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a great look when these cemeteries just go under, and it's happening more and more now.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it just makes me wonder what the Perpetual Care Fund is really
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: for and why no one is checking on it.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I actually have some pictures I'm not ready to share yet of...
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of like decrepit mausoleums and unkempt places for big,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: maybe even corporately owned, you know, funeral establishments and cemeteries.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if you, let's say, have $18 billion in the bank,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: you shouldn't also have falling down mausoleums.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is what I'm thinking.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: But if the state is willing to let you have falling down mausoleums,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: even though you have $18 billion a bank, That is concerning.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not a bad actor.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a bad actor at 70, in a 55,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: driving down the highway at 70 miles an hour and it's supposed to be fast.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a bad actor.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just ignoring a law that I know no one's going to enforce.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I think we might be in a lot of these states
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: that have continually...
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, defunct funeral, defunct cemeteries.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody's like, oh, well, yeah, I guess they just ran out of money.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Times are tough.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: All right. Anyway, there's a link to this story in the show notes.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got some more.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think, like I said, I think I'll have another bit of reporting out later this week.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: A massive 1 million square foot cemetery and funeral complex is being proposed
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: for the protected greenbelt in the rural hamlet of Gormley, Ontario,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: drawing sharp concern from local residents over its sheer scale and potential impact
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: on drinking water and resources.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: The development application,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: which seeks to rezone two adjacent properties in north of Markham,
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: outlines a project roughly the size of It says two Rogers Centers.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how big the Rogers Center is because I'm not Canadian, but it's a lot.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: A million square foot building is a property.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of square feet.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: The ambitious proposal features a three-story funeral home and crematorium
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: and a three-story mausoleum with a towering eight-story mausoleum dubbed
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: the Wall Burial VIP Palace.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Alongside 100 underground parking spaces,
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: because the proposed sites entirely
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: within Ontario's protected Greenbelt environmental advocates
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: and nearby neighbors are pushing back,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: opponents argue that the development of this magnitude threatens local aquifers
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: and fundamentally clashes with the rural character
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: of the historic hamlet.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: This one's one of those everybody's a bad guy kind of stories.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know how I feel about the NIMBY curse,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: but I feel like this isn't quite a not in my backyard so much
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: as we protected this land for a reason,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: and the reason wasn't so you could build
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: an eight-story wall burial VIP palace.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that wasn't what they had in mind.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be interesting to see. There's some pictures.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a link to the, well, not real pictures, you know, the artist's renderings.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got a link to that in the show notes.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And again, in light of what I just said,
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: there's got to be skepticism about building these massive, massive,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: massive cemeteries.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the underground parking, I assume, is under the mausoleums.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't suspect that, you know,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: the parking garage will be like 12 feet down
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: with the caskets six feet
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: above The parking garage and six feet below the ground.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure the underground parking is by the mausoleums.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a link to the story in the show notes.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, I'm going to tab this and continue to follow up on it because it's a big deal.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And also kind of what I was getting at in that last story.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you have a million square foot cemetery
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: and you open it tomorrow...
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's your perpetual care fund going to be really?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are you really going to have enough money
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: to replace this eight-story mausoleum in another 70 years?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Will anybody care?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are you counting on no one caring?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Those questions and more will be answered as I check my email
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: because I'm sure I've tickled a couple of interested parties spots
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: because I know it's not as simple as that.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm oversimplifying it, but this is, like I said, it's a discussion I'd like to have.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So please, if you have a take on perpetual care and its discontents
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: and its positives and all of those things, make sure you reach out to me.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can email me.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: By Tony Russo at gmail.com.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is B-Y-T-O-N-Y-R-U-S-S-O at gmail.com.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, if you got this in an email because you're a subscriber,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: you can just respond to the email and I will get it there.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a link to this story in the show notes.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I read a double story this week,
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: first from Seven Days Vermont and then from the local NPR station
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: about private equity and its discontents.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: The reporting was, I think, very well done, which is why I have both of them shared,
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: because it was reasonable.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't one of these, you know, consolidation is killing everybody,
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: but it also wasn't, you know, Consolidation is the best way to go for it.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've said it before,
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: and I continue to believe that there may be more
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: of a squeeze in the coming year,
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: six months, than we may have expected.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't talk about it in the reporting in this episode, but I'll tell you now,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: one of the other And one of the things
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: that I think held SCI back was they didn't buy as many funeral homes
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: as I think they had been planning to in the beginning of the year.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Part of that is there are more aggressive,
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: more and more aggressive private equity concerns getting into the game.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: That also could mean that the prices are beyond what
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: the prices might be unnaturally inflated, even in an inflationary environment,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: which should make you nervous.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would make me nervous if I were a private investor in some of these private concerns.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, there is the efficiency and the job maintenance that comes
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: with I think it's great reporting.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: In, you places where otherwise the
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: funeral home would just stop being a funeral home and get turned
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: into something interesting like a gas station.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the people would just have to go to the next nearest place.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's great reporting.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think is worth reading. And I've linked to it in the show notes.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that'll do us for this time.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: The rest has been an On Deathcare production.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was written, edited, all the things by me, Tony Russo.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still having so much fun doing it.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to take a couple seconds here to tell you about a little bit
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: of a reorganization I'm doing.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to be out Tuesday morning.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: On Wednesday morning, I'm going to return to sending out that weekly roundup podcast
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Of stories that didn't fit in here so that they're clickable and you can keep up with the news.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had tried sending them out on Saturdays.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, my production schedule is just too busy on Friday.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so the last two or three weeks it got squeezed out.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to send you all 700 stories,
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: but I did all the work and I didn't get to share it, which is embarrassing.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to switch back to Wednesdays and I'm going to try to Stick to that.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the rest comes out on Tuesday and the rest of the rest is
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: which is what I've been talking about,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: which is what I've been calling that is going to come out on Wednesday.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again, as always, to my paid subscribers for their support.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: But all of the subscribers are.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're really, really important to me.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess that's the other thing I wanted to say about this Wednesday email.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is for subscribers only, paid or not.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not subscribed to the email newsletter,
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: you're not really going to have access to this news rundown.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a paywall, but it is a subscription wall.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if you find these interesting, make sure you subscribe. I...
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't bombard with emails.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're certainly not going to get seven from me.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in a busy week, I may send five emails and I rarely send them two days in a row.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it's necessary.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that'll do it, as I said, and I will check in with you next time.
• 25:30
  [music]