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TWST: We'd like to begin with a brief historical sketch of Arbor
Memorial Services and a picture of the things you are doing now.
Mr. Innes: Arbor has been in business for 59 years. We started in 1947
with one cemetery in London, Ontario. We now have 41 cemeteries across
Canada. Initially, the business was limited to interment rights for
ground burial. Over the years, other related products such as memorials,
urns, vaults, mausolea, and columbaria were introduced. It was a private
company until 1973, when it was listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The late 1970s saw us add crematoria to our major cemeteries, as
cremation became a more popular alternative to ground burial, and we
currently have 27 crematoria across Canada. We entered the funeral
business in 1983. We now have 94 funeral homes across Canada, and
although the funeral business was started much later than the cemetery
business, the funeral and cemetery businesses are about the same size in
terms of revenue. We operate in all provinces of Canada except two small
provinces ' Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. We are currently the
largest combined funeral, cemetery and crematoria operator in Canada.
However, this is going to change, as the announced merger of Service
Corporation International and Alderwoods is going to take place by the
end of 2006. TWST: What have been the principal drivers of the company's success?
Mr. Innes: The principal driver is a total focus on customer service,
and I know a lot of companies have that in their mission statement, but
I think we really live it. When each of our funeral homes performs a
service, a questionnaire is given to the family with a number of
questions about the kind of service that we provide, and the key
question on that questionnaire is, would you recommend this funeral home
to family and friends? Unless we are scoring in the 99% range, we get
very upset. Secondly, we have a balanced business between the funeral
and cemetery today, and we try to maximize the synergy between these two
businesses. Our principal competitors generally are in either the
funeral home business or in the cemetery business. The customers are the
same. We've established a relationship on one side of the business that
provides wonderful opportunities for us to cross-sell the other service
to these customers. We also are focusing on providing funeral homes on
our cemetery properties, and that is another advantage to the customer
because we can now provide one-stop shopping. From our standpoint, we
are operating much more efficiently than we would be otherwise.
Tickers included in this excerpt: ABOa:TSX
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The
Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does
not make stock recommendations.
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