Cradle to Grave. PE Funeral Home Rollups

Part II of the Private Equity Series: Funeral Homes

Author

HY Harry
March 19, 2026

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Welcome back! It’s time to talk funeral homes, because unfortunately, costs are on the rise in this space and there’s generational issues that make this dark industry attractive to private equity. The median cost of a funeral was $9,135 in the United States. It is very fragmented as there are 24,422 businesses in the Funeral Homes industry in the United States. Prior reports stated that 80% of the industry is privately owned and operated, primarily by mom and pops, but it looks like the industry has been quietly consolidating further given Service Corp. and Carriage Services estimate they control 23% of the market, per recent SEC filings.

This is Part II of my ongoing series looking at industries where I’m frankly not sure whether PE or corporate consolidators should be involved. Part I was a piece on veterinary consolidation.

The U.S. older adult population (65+) is growing significantly, with estimates placing it around 62-65 million currently (2024/2025 data), heading towards 84 million by the mid-2050s. Per US Funerals Online, the 2025 U.S. funeral market has a $75B TAM with roughly 3.1 million deaths projected in 2025. The death rate is expected to rise in the U.S. due to our aging population. The industry is expected to grow to $103.5B by 2030, at a 6.67% CAGR.

Unfortunately for as dark as it is, the funeral ecosystem has fit the investment profile of something that is fragmented and has “the right” tailwinds. There are various companies in the ecosystem, with cremation services, casket and coffin manufacturers, and funeral homes that provide visitation, funeral, and burial services. The average cost of a traditional is ~$8,300 but rises to ~$10,000 when considering cemetery fees.

In addition, there are a significant amount of older generational folks who want to sell their funeral home business. A 2021 survey by the National Funeral Directors Association found 27% of owners want to retire or sell within 5 years. But according to this NFDA survey, the number might be more like 46%.

Notably, only 16% of consumers evaluate more than one funeral home when looking for a provider. The lack of comparison shopping makes it attractive for corporate owners, but also shows that you as a consumer should do comparison shopping!!

Children aren’t going into the family business, breaking trends that date even as far back as the 1800s or early 1900s. It’s not exactly a fun profession to be fair, having to prepare the body, take part in cremation, wake up to late-night calls, deal with grieving families, and work long and unexpected hours (given passings aren’t just something you schedule), can really take a toll. You really have to give kudos to the folks who partake in this profession and try their absolute best to deliver the most respectful service they can.

The problem I always bring up with PE too is how incentives are driven around selling the business after 5 years. That drives short-term profit margin expansion instead of long-term value creation. One of the levers “short-term-ism” folks take are around sale-leasebacks, and it seems like funeral home consolidators are pulling that lever in particular.

Let’s take a deep-dive into what the Industry looks like today.

Cremation vs. Caskets:

A lot of funerals used to center around open caskets, but that has meaningfully changed over the past two decades. People are now opting toward cheaper cremations instead.

Cremation rates have risen to 56% in 2020 and are expected to rise to 78.4% or higher given the fact that cremations are 40% to 50% cheaper than full burials.

While revenue is rising in the industry, margins are declining due to increased cremations, which are lower ASP. From a funeral convention, average profits from a funeral are reportedly down 37%.

There’s also an “ESG” element, where younger generations think about more environmentally friendly burial options, which basically means increased cremation.

What makes these businesses hard at the mom-and-pop level is that many of these smaller businesses make <$1mm in revenue so mix shift moving down to cremations really hurts profits.

The worst off smaller businesses are monument companies facing both tariff headwinds and the shift to cremation.

PE and Corporate players in the industry:

The Industry has been rapidly consolidating, with some large public players, as well as some regional consolidators who have sprouted up over the past 5 years.

Service Corporation International $SCI ( ▼ 0.1% ) is a large player in funeral home consolidation. having a whopping $4.3B in revenue in 2025 and 1,485 funeral service locations and 500 cemeteries with brands such as Dignity Memorial, Neptune Society, and National Cremation Society. They estimate that they have 18% market share. They also operate under other names that hide the corporate roots to local communities.

SCI is very active in acquiring and building new locations, spending $101.3mm in 2025 to acquire 22 funeral service locations and 2 cemeteries.

They even note that increased life expectancy and the shift towards cremations are risk factors. I know they have to include it as a risk factor, but it is very unpleasant…

Carriage Services $CSV ( ▲ 0.46% ) operates 155 funeral homes and 29 cemeteries, quietly acquiring other funeral home, cemetery, and cremation businesses. FY25 Revenue was $417.4mm. Collectively, Service Corporation and Carriage make up 23% of funeral and cemetery revenue in the United States. In 2025, they acquired 8 funeral homes, a cemetery, and a cremation business in Florida for $56.5mm.

Matthew International $MATW ( ▼ 0.04% ) is a memorialization supplier and provides caskets, cremation equipment, granite memorials, and plaques. They reported $1.5B in revenue in FY25, a decline from $1.8B in 2024 and $1.9B in 2023 as all categories have struggled, with memorialization revenue down from $843mm in 2023 to $809.5mm in 2025; although EBITDA has been flattish in the ~$160mm range ($169.5mm in ‘25). Hillenbrand $HI ( ▲ 0.02% ) has a segment that manufactures caskets, urns, and other memorial products. Matthew International, also called out the “risk” around mortality and cremation rates:

There’s been some take privates & PE-backed consolidators in the space too:

Park Lawn Corporate was taken private by Homesteaders Life Company and Birch Hill Equity Partners for C$1.2B. The Company had divested its cemetery assets at 8x EV/EBITDA in late 2023 (more on that in a bit). The company shifted focus towards pre-need products and services, making the sold assets non-core.

StoneMore was acquired by Axar Capital and rebranded as Everstory Partners. They’ve been extremely active and in 2023 acquired 84 properties (72 cemeteries, 11 funeral homes, and one crematory) from Park Lawn Corporation.

One of the more interesting things I came across was Foundation Partners Group, which must’ve shit the bed, because reportedly the lender group ended up taking over the company. They had a bizarre announcement saying they had new ownership, but initially didn’t say who the group was.

Milestone Funeral Partners was acquired in 2024 by Rosewood Private Investments and has 78+ locations.

There’s an interesting real estate dynamic too: it’s very hard to reconvert these locations into other properties (houses or other offices), there’s a smell that’s hard to extract from many of these properties, BUT the properties are generally in valuable locations due to their history and role in the community. Sale-leasebacks are a danger in the space. Obviously, these create a cash flow bump from capturing sale proceeds, but it does create rental obligations which makes unit profit margins lower. Some of the newer regional players are following this playbook.

In 2021 out in Western-Mass, Milestone Funeral Services was started by two ex-SCI employees who thought suburban and rural funeral home markets were underserved. They quietly became the largest owner of funeral home businesses in western Massachusetts and overall now owns 77 funeral homes. They reportedly take majority stakes but they have a structure where sellers retain a portion of the equity, with 36 of its 39 shareholders being licensed funeral home directors. The shareholders continue their day-to-day roles or move into a semi-retired role.

Big Sky Capital Partners is among the companies building a portfolio of funeral homes through sale-leaseback deals, backed largely by family office capital.

Other aggregators include US. Northstar Memorial Group, Smart Cremations, and Newcomer Funeral Service Corp.

PE is coming in at attractive multiples

Reportedly, sales have increased from 3x-5x revenue to 7 to 9x revenue.

But from what I’ve gathered online, some of the reasons folks will sell for less money is because if they sell to a large firm who may not be aligned from a reputational standpoint and there’s backlash, they will face that in the community and see a stain on their reputation. I’m sure some Sellers leave for Florida and Arizona immediately, but the point stands for everyone who stays local.

Prices rise fast and some consumers get confused

The worry is that consolidation means fewer options to compare prices and a shift towards revenue upsells instead of a care and sympathy-led approach that historic family-led funeral homes had.

The other worry, which infuriates me beyond belief, is taking advantage of the elderly. Some of the settlements below were from plans that confuse the elderly.

There were situations cited where following a sale to Foundation Partners Group in 2019, prices for a cremation rose from $425 to $760, burials rose from $1.84k to ~$2.5k and full funerals rose from $3.4k to ~$4.5k.

There was a similar story where from 2018 to 2021, cremations at a new SCI chain increased from $1.56k to $1.77k, burials rose from $2.8k to $3.68k, and funerals rose from $4.38k to $5.1k.

SCI had to partake in a $209mm federal class-action lawsuit settlement after it allegedly deceived 87,000 Florida customers who bought prepaid cremation plans. There was another SCI related case where there was a $23mm settlement after California residents were confused over a “standard plan” that marked up merchandise and had lower than full refund rates, even before services were provided.

The FTC has a “funeral rule” that requires funeral homes to give pricing information about their offerings over the phone. In a report where FTC staff called 278 random funeral homes in 2023, they were unable to obtain pricing information from 21 providers. Generally, multiple calls were needed to obtain price information.

PE’s Response

The recurring theme that is some of the price increases we’re seeing across a lot of industries are a function of higher supply costs and increased labor costs that starting during the covid pandemic and never turned back.

Foundation Partners Group has previously said that price increase they’ve had to enact reflect higher supply costs & increased labor costs. We all know inflation rocketed higher after covid, so some of these rises in prices may be a function of having to pass prices to the consumer. But it is clear that sale-leaseback moves are the type of things done to maximize short-term gains at the expense of long-term performance and a role in the community.

The most notable response though, is that some players in the industry really do try to promise that they’re family first.

It’s hard to really differentiate whether some of the independent players are truly in it for the money or not, but one family owned company I noticed was Newcomer Funeral Service Group which has 50+ locations and is a fifth-generation funeral service provider. It is encouraging to see their CEO reply directly to a negative Yelp review though.

From what’s publicly available, it seems like their approach is a family-oriented one, with fifth-generation leadership and positioning as a family-owned alternative for sellers. Notably too, prices are listed on sites, as opposed to having to call for them. They’ve noted, “In today's world of large corporations and ever-increasing prices, we are proud to be able to serve you with the highest caliber of personal service at a price that is far below what other funeral homes charge.”

Finding “Chain” Funeral Homes in your area:

I’ve assembled a list of the funeral home consolidators so you can be aware of which funeral service providers are larger chains.

If someone with more time wants to vibe code a map of all these, you’d be doing the lord’s work.

Alternative ways to evaluate whether your funeral home is private-equity backed is to look for the following:

  • Scroll websites carefully to look for phrases about “part of ____ network” or a “___ provider”

  • Search state licensing records, use the Funeral Consumers Alliance, or search other business registrations

  • Limited information about the funeral home’s local history and a family’s role in the community

  • Asking a funeral home outright

Concluding Remarks:

The main reason I’m conducting these PE writeups is because as consumers we all need to make sure we’re getting the best bang for our buck.

From my digging, the best advice I have is for you to plan out which funeral home providers you would use for yourself or your loved ones. This involves knowing what aligns with your religious beliefs, what route you’re going with your remains (burial or cremation), and where you or your loved ones’ remains would be located. Loss, especially unexpected loss, is incredibly hard to navigate so even just creating a little word doc around funeral planning and options might really help you navigate a tough situation.

Figure out who your local or family run funeral directors are.

Until next time. Dentists and Urgent Care are up next.

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