Getting the best you can afford
When the GFG started blogging all of 6 years ago, an appalled and furious undertaker rang his solicitor and instructed him to take out an injunction requiring us to cease and desist. The solicitor told him it didn’t quite work like that; had the GFG libelled him? No we hadn’t. But we were doing […]
Dignity shares nosedive!
The GFG blogged about Dignity earlier this week — and look what happened to the share price. Source
Dignity makes a difference
Capital expenditure at foot of page And today’s difference is that between Dignity plc’s capital expenditure in the 52 week period ending 27 Dec 2013 — £12.4 million… and capital expenditure in the 52 week period ending 27 Dec 2013 — £1.4 million This saving of £11 million is huge in the context of declared quarterly profits of […]
Don’t expect Dignity to solve funeral poverty
Yesterday we let the interns loose on the blog and they impulsively passed on an appeal to readers to write to Mike McCollum of Dignity plc and ask him to do his bit in the fight against funeral poverty. What they conspicuously failed to do was identify a single reason why Mr McCollum and Dignity […]
It’s your line to Mike McCollum
Church Action on Poverty and Quaker Social Action are holding an event which will bring together charities, communities, policy-makers and the funeral industry to seek joint solutions to the growing problem of funeral poverty. They say: “It’s really important that all sides are represented at the event and participate in finding solutions. Unfortunately, Dignity Funerals […]
The Co-op is dying, long live the co-op
“Every private equity company in the country has been in touch to try and buy its funerals operation.” Lord Myners In recent times the Co-op’s reputation has been kept afloat by sentiment fostered by its of-the-people-for-the-people origins, fortified by ‘ethical values’ and holier-than-thou policies on fair trade. Fondness has blinded people who should know […]
Dignity marches on
The Times has reported Dignity plc’s results here(£). Briefly: Pre-tax profits are up 15 per cent to £52.9 million. Prepaid funerals contributed £6.7 million of this. The bonus pool is £2.5 million and all fulltime staff have been given ‘a payout equivalent to’ £1000. Final shareholder dividend of 11.83p a share, an increase of 10 per […]
Don’t charge, don’t care?
A mother whose son was stillborn is calling for an investigation after his ashes were not returned to her for over a year, reports the Northern Echo. A spokesman for Speckmans Funeral Service, part of Dignity Funerals, said: “We collected the cremated remains and returned them to the funeral home with the intention of contacting the family […]
Dignity and impudence
I get a lot of email that goes straight into the cyberrecycling bin. This, though, possibly warrants a response. Hello Charles, How are you? I hope you don’t mind me getting in touch. My name’s Izabela and I work for a digital marketing company called Greenlight helping to spread awareness about Age UK. As you […]
If small is beautiful, look lovely
There isn’t a single successful business in Britain that doesn’t seek to grow through mergers and acquisitions. Consolidation, they call it. It’s a factor of competitive capitalism. Or greed, if you prefer. Whichever. The bigger you are, the more efficiently you can trade. Efficiency enables you to bring your prices down, blow off competitors — […]
