CSV

New in FY2025

• Our expectation is that, over time, the Standards Operating Model will result in improved field-level margins, market share, customer satisfaction and overall financial performance, but there is no assurance that these goals will be met.
• There is no assurance that we will be able to continue to identify acquisition candidates that meet our criteria or that we will be able to reach terms with identified candidates for transactions that are acceptable to us, and even if we do, we may not be able to close the transaction or successfully integrate the new business into our existing portfolio.
• From time to time, we engage in discussions with third parties about potential divestitures of one or more of our businesses that, if fully consummated, could result in the divestiture of a material amount of assets that have historically contributed to our results of operations.
• The funeral and cemetery industry is characterized by a large number of locally owned, independent operations in the U.S. and a large number of operations owned by publicly and privately held funeral home and cemetery consolidators.
• Trust and Life Insurance Funded Contracts Our funeral and cemetery trust funds own investments in equity securities, fixed income securities, and mutual funds, which are affected by market conditions that are beyond our control.
• The following table summarizes our investment returns (realized and unrealized), excluding certain fees, on our trust funds for the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024, and 2023: 2025 2024 2023 Preneed funeral trust funds 6.1 % 11.1 % 17.3 % Preneed cemetery trust funds 6.6 % 12.7 % 19.1 % Perpetual care trust funds 6.6 % 13.2 % 20.2 % Generally, earnings or gains and losses on our preneed funeral and cemetery trust investments are recognized, and we withdraw cash, when the underlying service is performed, merchandise is delivered, or upon contract cancellation.
• Increasing death benefits related to preneed funeral contracts funded through life insurance policies may not cover future increases in the cost of providing a price-guaranteed funeral service.
• For preneed funeral contracts funded through life insurance policies, we receive in cash a general agency commission from the third-party insurance company.
• In addition, our effective tax rate could be adversely affected by changes in the mix of earnings in states with different statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, changes in tax laws and regulations, changes to our business structure or operations, including acquisitions or divestitures, or changes in our interpretations of tax laws.
• We may be subject to additional tax liabilities and penalties resulting from new tax legislation or regulations, which could be enacted at any time, and changes to existing tax laws or regulations, which could be interpreted, amended, or applied in a manner that has a material effect on us, which could materially impact our business and financial condition.
• For example, on July 4, 2025, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (“OBBBA”) was signed into law.
• The OBBBA made several key provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 permanent, including 100% bonus depreciation, the immediate expensing of domestic research costs, and the introduction of a favorable modification to the business interest expense limitation.
• Together, these changes accelerate the timing of certain tax deductions in the current period that allow for reductions in cash taxes.
• The Company adopted the relevant provisions during the third quarter of 2025 and determined that the OBBBA did not have a material effect on the Company's financial statements.
• Bureau of the Census estimates that the number of deaths in the U.S. will increase in the future, longer life spans could reduce the rate of deaths.
• These unexpected fluctuations may not only increase death rates during the affected period, but also may subsequently decrease death rates following the affected period as a result of an acceleration of death rates.
• The increasing number of cremations in the U.S. could cause revenue to decline because we could lose market share to firms specializing in cremations and because our average revenue for cremations is lower than that for traditional burials.
• Our traditional cemetery and funeral service operations face competition from the increasing number of cremations in the U.S..
• As of December 31, 2025, we had $532.9 million of total debt (excluding debt issuance costs, debt discounts and lease obligations), consisting of $6.2 million of acquisition debt (consisting of deferred purchase price and promissory notes payable to sellers of businesses and real property we purchased), $400.0 million of our Senior Notes and $126.7 million of outstanding borrowings under our Credit Facility, with $121.1 million of availability under our Credit Facility after giving effect to $2.2 million of outstanding letters of credit.
• For example, effective August 1, 2025, the U.S. adopted new and increased tariffs on countries and specific goods, subject to evolving exemptions.
• In October 2025, the U.S. government announced a series of new and expanded tariffs on imports from China and other countries, including a 100% tariff on certain categories of goods and increased duties.
• While these measures were scheduled to take effect beginning November 1, 2025, the U.S. government announced on October 30, 2025 a temporary pause on the implementation of these tariffs, along with China agreeing to pause the implementation of certain retaliatory measures scheduled to take effect in response.
• These actions have caused substantial uncertainty and volatility in financial markets and may result in additional retaliatory measures or costs on U.S. goods.
• Based on the results of our annual goodwill and intangible assets impairment test we performed as of August 31, 2025 and our annual review of long-lived assets and leases as of December 31, 2025, we concluded that there were no impairments of our goodwill, intangible assets or other long-lived assets and leases.
• Information Technology and Internal Controls We rely significantly on information technology systems, software, or information security practices and those of our business partners or third-party providers, and any failure, inadequacy, interruption or security lapse of that technology, including any cybersecurity incidents or our actual or perceived failure to comply with any related regulatory requirements, could lead to adverse business consequences.
• Additionally, we take steps to secure our information systems and software and any access provided by our business partners or third-party service providers, including our computer systems, intranet and internet sites, email and other telecommunications and data networks.
• However, the security measures we have implemented may not be effective and our systems may be vulnerable to theft, loss, damage, and interruption from a number of potential sources and events, including unauthorized access or security breaches, data privacy breaches, natural or man-made disasters, cyber-attacks, computer viruses, malware, phishing, denial of service attacks, power loss, or other disruptive events.
• Information technology security threats have been increasing in frequency and sophistication.
• Cyber-attacks may be random, coordinated, or targeted, including sophisticated computer crime threats.
• In addition, we maintain insurance coverage for various cybersecurity risks, which covered substantially all the costs associated with our January 2021 ransomware attack, but it is possible that such insurance coverage may not fully insure all future costs or losses associated with other cybersecurity incidents.
• Various state governments, notably California, New York, Nevada and Virginia, have enacted or enhanced data privacy regulations, including data breach notification requirements, consumer protection laws, and personal data privacy laws, and other state governments are considering establishing similar or stronger protections.
• For example, in June 2018, the State of California enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), which took effect on January 1, 2023, and expanded consumer rights related to sharing of personal data, granted additional personal-data rights to consumers, removed the exceptions for business-to-business and employment data, and removed the 30-day window to cure alleged noncompliance before being subject to administrative enforcement.
• With respect to CCPA and CPRA, both have increased the data privacy requirements and costs for our business.
• We have incorporated, and may continue incorporating, traditional and generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) solutions into certain of our information systems and operations with the intent to enhance efficiency and effectiveness, and these solutions may become important in our operations over time.
• For example, we have incorporated AI and generative AI to automate certain manual administrative processes and increase productivity within our sale terms.
• The continued evolution and use of this technology, including cloud-based computing and AI, creates opportunities for the potential loss or misuse of personal data that was collected, used, stored, or transferred in our business operations and systems, and flaws, breaches or malfunctions in these systems could lead to operational disruptions, data loss, including for example unintentional dissemination or intentional destruction of confidential information stored in our or our third party providers’ systems, or erroneous decision-making, which may result in significantly increased business and security costs, reputational damage, administrative penalties, or costs related to defending legal claims.
• AI technologies may be costly and require significant resources to either license from third-parties or develop, which may be difficult to integrate, launch, and manage, if at all, and require periodic upgrades.
• There is also a risk that we may not have access to technology or qualified personnel resources to adequately incorporate or adopt ongoing advancements into any AI technologies, including access to the licensing of key intellectual property from third parties.
• Our competitors or other third parties may incorporate AI into their products more quickly or more successfully than us, which could impair our ability to compete effectively and adversely affect our results of operations.
• The legal and regulatory landscape and industry standards surrounding AI technologies are rapidly evolving and remains uncertain, and compliance may impose significant operational costs and may limit our ability or require significant resources to develop, deploy, use or maintain AI technologies.

and 4 more.

Gone since FY2024

• Our expectation is that, over time, the Standards Operating Model will result in improving field-level margins, market share, customer satisfaction and overall financial performance, but there is no assurance that these goals will be met.
• There is no assurance that we will be able to continue to identify acquisition candidates that meet our criteria or that we will be able to reach terms with identified candidates for transactions that are acceptable to us, and even if we do, we may not be able to successfully complete the transaction or integrate the new business into our existing business.
• We intend to apply standards established under our strategic acquisition framework to evaluate acquisition candidates, and there is no assurance that we will continue to be successful in doing so or that we will find attractive candidates that satisfy these standards.
• Due in part to the presence of competitors who have been in certain markets longer than we have, such acquisitions or investments may be more difficult or expensive than we anticipate.
• From time to time, we engage in discussions with third parties about potential divestitures of one or more of our businesses that, if fully consummated, could result in the divestiture of a material amount of assets and contribution to our results of operations that have historically contributed to our results of operations.
• The funeral and cemetery industry is characterized by a large number of locally owned, independent operations in the United States and a large number of operations owned by publicly and privately held funeral home and cemetery consolidators.
• Trust Fund and Life Insurance Contracts Our funeral and cemetery trust funds own investments in equity securities, fixed income securities, and mutual funds, which are affected by market conditions that are beyond our control.
• The following table summarizes our investment returns (realized and unrealized), excluding certain fees, on our trust funds for the years ended December 31, 2024, 2023 and 2022: 2024 2023 2022 Preneed funeral trust funds 11.1 % 17.3 % 1.0 % Preneed cemetery trust funds 12.7 % 19.1 % 0.7 % Perpetual care trust funds 13.2 % 20.2 % (0.2) % Generally, earnings or gains and losses on our preneed funeral and cemetery trust investments are recognized, and we withdraw cash, when the underlying service is performed, merchandise is delivered, or upon contract cancellation.
• Increasing death benefits related to preneed funeral contracts funded through life insurance contracts may not cover future increases in the cost of providing a price-guaranteed funeral service.
• For preneed funeral contracts funded through life insurance contracts, we receive in cash a general agency commission from the third-party insurance company.
• In addition, our effective tax rate could be adversely affected by changes in the mix of earnings in states with different statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities, changes in tax laws and regulations, or changes in our interpretations of tax laws.
• New tax laws or regulations could be enacted at any time, and existing tax laws or regulations could be interpreted, amended, or applied in a manner that has a material effect on us, which could materially impact our business and financial condition.
• For example, on August 16, 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (the “IRA”) was signed into law which includes a tax and spending package that introduced several tax-related provisions, including a 15% corporate alternative minimum tax on corporations that have an average of $1 billion adjusted financial statement income over a consecutive three-year period and a 1% excise tax on certain corporate stock repurchases.
• The impact of these provisions became effective for our Company beginning on January 1, 2023.
• We have reviewed and assessed the provisions of the IRA, and we do not currently believe that the IRA will have a material impact on our business, operating results, and financial condition.
• We will continue to evaluate the impact of the IRA, along with any other new or revised tax laws or regulations, as such information becomes available.
• Although the United States Bureau of the Census estimates that the number of deaths in the United States will increase in the future, longer life spans could reduce the rate of deaths.
• These unexpected fluctuations may not only increase death rates during the affected period, like we saw with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, but also may subsequently decrease death rates following the affected period as a result of an acceleration of death rates.
• The increasing number of cremations in the United States could cause revenue to decline because we could lose market share to firms specializing in cremations and because our average revenue for cremations is lower than that for traditional burials.
• Our traditional cemetery and funeral service operations face competition from the increasing number of cremations in the United States.
• As of December 31, 2024, we had $542.5 million of total debt (excluding debt issuance costs, debt discounts and lease obligations), consisting of $5.5 million of acquisition debt (consisting of deferred purchase price and promissory notes payable to sellers of businesses and real property we purchased), $400.0 million of our Senior Notes and $137.0 million of outstanding borrowings under our Credit Facility, with $110.8 million of availability under our Credit Facility after giving effect to $2.2 million of outstanding letters of credit.
• For example, effective February 4, 2025, the U.S. government implemented an additional tariff on goods being imported from China and announced additional tariffs for goods imported into the United States from Mexico and Canada beginning in March 2025.
• Based on the results of our annual goodwill and intangible assets impairment test we performed as of August 31, 2024 and our annual review of long-lived assets and leases at December 31, 2024, we determined that there were factors that would indicate the need to perform an additional quantitative impairment test for tradenames for certain funeral home businesses.
• As a result of this additional quantitative impairment test, we recorded an impairment to the tradenames of certain funeral home businesses of $0.6 million, as the carrying amount of these tradenames exceeded their fair value.
• We concluded that there were no impairments of our goodwill or other long-lived assets and leases.
• Information Technology and Internal Controls We rely significantly on information technology and any failure, inadequacy, interruption or security lapse of that technology, including any cybersecurity incidents could harm our ability to operate our business effectively.
• In addition, we maintain insurance coverage for various cybersecurity risks, which covered substantially all of the costs associated with our January 2021 ransomware attack, but it is possible that such insurance coverage may not fully insure all future costs or losses associated with other cybersecurity incidents.
• Various state governments, notably California, New York, Nevada and Virginia, have enacted or enhanced data privacy regulations, and other state governments are considering establishing similar or stronger protections.
• For example, in November 2020, California voters approved Proposition 24 (Consumer Personal Information Law and Agency Initiative), which went into effect as of January 1, 2023 and has increased the data privacy requirements for our business.
• Failure to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting could adversely affect our results of operations, investor confidence, and our stock price.
• The accuracy of our financial reporting depends on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.
• Internal control over financial reporting can provide only reasonable assurance with respect to the preparation and fair presentation of financial statements and may not prevent or detect misstatements because of its inherent limitations.
• If we do not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting or implement controls sufficient to provide reasonable assurance with respect to the preparation and fair presentation of our financial statements, we could be unable to file accurate financial reports on a timely basis, and our results of operations, investor confidence, and stock price could be materially adversely affected.