Industry & Services >> Analyst Interviews >> August 10, 2009

Roundtable Forum:funeral Services

Thomas A. Parmalee is the Executive Editor of Funeral Service Insider, the leading newsletter in the country for funeral service professionals. Funeral Service Insider regularly covers publicly traded death-care firms as well as trends that affect funeral service. Mr. Parmalee formerly worked on the financial headline desk of Bloomberg News, analyzing earnings reports and news releases. In his spare time, he freelances for select clients. Profile
Dan Isard was originally a Financial Planner specializing in building financial planning practices. In 1984 he moved to Phoenix to join a successful financial planning practice and help them grow their firm. Since 1984 Mr. Isard has appraised almost 2,000 funeral homes and about 500 cemeteries. He has also appraised many funeral and cemetery businesses that owned crematories. Mr. Isard has been an expert witness for more than 75 legal matters over the past 20 years. Since 1985 he has been involved in representing buyers or sellers of funeral homes and cemeteries for transactions totaling about a half a billion dollars in purchase price. While some of these sales went to key people, existing employees of the business, co-stockholders, competitors and family transactions, many were with the regional and national acquirers. Profile
A.J. Daoud has been President of Daoud Holding/American Funeral Partners in Pilot Mountain, N.C., since 1999. He served as a Regional Vice President at the Osiris Group and the Loewen Group for 12 years. Mr. Daoud was also a police officer in Miami Beach, Fla., for 11 years. He has an MBA from the University of Phoenix as well as a bachelor's degree in business and an associate's degree in funeral service. Profile
TWST: Would you start by painting a portrait of today's typical funeral home in

the United States?

Mr. Isard: The average funeral home services about 116 families a year. A

service in