Is Dignity overvalued, over-leveraged and operationally insecure?
A couple of copies of the Investors Intelligence have come to our attention. In them, financial analyst Aubrey Brocklebank entertains doubts about the viability of Dignity plc. He expresses himself very technically, so some of his argument and most of the graphs go somewhat over the heads of Team GFG. We’d be interested to know […]
Trebles all round
From the Evening Standard: Dignity, the funeral care specialist, has again shown there is only one line of work guaranteed to be recession-proof: death. The group increased the number of funerals it performed to 63,200 last year as it benefited from a rise in deaths in Britain to 551,000. This helped buy cialis from mexico […]
Feeding time
Yorkshire-headquartered Yew Holdings has been acquired by rival funeral services provider Dignity in a deal priced at £58.3m. Dignity has also announced plans for a share placing to raise £24.2m before expenses. The acquisition comprises 40 funeral locations and two crematoria located in the north of England. Dignity added there were “significant opportunities” to improve […]
Piece of mind for the man with the plan
There’s an unsparing piece in The Times, 11 November, on financial products associated with funeral planning: Hundreds of thousands of the poorest pensioners are losing thousands of pounds by buying into poor-value funeral planning products offered by some of the most trusted high street names. Funeral benefit plans offered as add-ons to over-50s life insurance […]
Call it quits
From the Oxford Times: The former owner of Oxford’s last independent funeral directors has spoken of the difficult decision she made in selling the business. S & R Childs, which has four branches in the city, is now part of Dignity, the UK’s biggest provider of funeral services. Sandra Homewood was one of the founders […]
A syphilitic blister on the face of funeral service
Dear Mr Greenfield, This has been a horrible week for you. Or has it? You will have by now appraised your reputational vulnerability, conducted a jeopardy assessment and learned how many people watched The British Way of Death. Taking heart from the recovery of Co-operative Funeralcare, you may be reckoning your best move is to […]
Dog Day
Dignity Plc said its profit for the first half rose about 11 percent on strong performance in its funeral services and crematoria businesses. The company said its underlying pretax profit rose to 27.5 million pounds ($43.16 million) for the 26 weeks ending June 29 from 24.7 million pounds a year earlier. Dignity, which operates a […]
The view below the radar
An article in the Times dated 15 July, based on an interview with Mike McCollum, ceo of Dignity plc, offers one or two (no more) features of interest. His definition of an undertaker? “We’re event organisers,” says McCollum. “We arrange a family event for you on very short notice, which you wish you didn’t have […]
Camref – the Campaign for Real Funerals
The departing board chairman of Golden Charter funeral plans offers this cold sweat-inducing warning to independent funeral directors in a valedictory address in the Golden Charter newsletter, Goldenews, which we are grateful to have had forwarded to us. He says: Co-op and Dignity have both acquired significant additional scale, and unquestionably they are operating with a […]
Wrong coffin with a twist
Here’s an extraordinary thing. A funeral director brings the wrong coffin to the crematorium. The crematorium staff spot that it’s the wrong coffin on arrival, and inform the funeral director. So far, so banal. What happens next? The service goes ahead with the wrong coffin. At the conclusion thereof the coffin is not burnt but, […]
