You are looking at a funeral home. You have a price in your head, a broker’s opinion of value, and maybe a rough multiple someone mentioned at a conference. What you do not have is a large dataset of recent closed transactions with verified prices.
That data exists. It is free. And almost nobody in the independent buyer community reads it.
Service Corporation International — SCI, publicly traded as SCI on the NYSE — is the largest funeral home operator in the United States. They own more than 1,500 locations. Because they are publicly traded, they file quarterly financial reports with the SEC that disclose exactly how much they spend on acquisitions, how many locations they bought, and what their existing portfolio earns per location.
Their Q2 2026 10-Q filing shows $101 million spent acquiring 22 funeral homes and 2 cemeteries. That is not a rumor. It is audited, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and available to anyone with an internet connection.
This article breaks down what those numbers tell you — and what they do not.
What $101 Million for 24 Locations Actually Means
Start with the arithmetic. $101 million across 22 funeral homes and 2 cemeteries works out to roughly $4.2 million per location. But that average is misleading.
SCI does not buy uniformly. Their acquisition strategy concentrates on:
- Metro and suburban markets with population density above 100,000. They are not buying rural two-chapel operations.
- Cluster acquisitions — multiple locations in the same metro area purchased together, which lets them consolidate back-office operations immediately.
- Locations with existing preneed books — large portfolios of prepaid funeral contracts that guarantee future revenue.
That $4.2 million average almost certainly includes a handful of larger metro acquisitions in the $8 to $12 million range pulling up the mean, alongside smaller suburban locations in the $1.5 to $3 million range.
What this means for you
If you are looking at a single-location independent funeral home in a secondary market, your purchase price is likely in the $500,000 to $3 million range. SCI’s average is not your benchmark. Their per-location spend reflects a different asset class — higher-volume metro locations with established preneed portfolios and real estate that appreciates.
But here is what is useful: SCI’s willingness to pay $4+ million per location in 2026 confirms that funeral home valuations have not collapsed. The market is paying real money for these businesses. If a seller quotes you a number and you think it sounds high, check it against what the largest, most sophisticated buyer in the industry is actually closing at. Their filings anchor the top of the market. For a deeper look at how to arrive at your own number, see our guide to funeral home valuation methods.
How to Read SCI’s 10-Q Like a Buyer
The SEC EDGAR database holds every quarterly and annual filing SCI has made since 1993. Here is what to look for and where to find it.
1. The acquisition line item
In the cash flow statement, look for “Acquisitions of businesses, net of cash acquired.” This is the total spent on funeral home and cemetery purchases during the quarter. It tells you the pace — is SCI accelerating, holding steady, or pulling back?
- Q2 2026: $101 million (22 funeral homes, 2 cemeteries)
- Compare to prior quarters and the same quarter last year. A spike means SCI sees opportunity. A pullback means they are either digesting prior acquisitions or seeing fewer sellers at acceptable prices.
2. Same-store revenue trends
This is the number most individual buyers overlook, and it is the most valuable.
SCI reports “comparable” funeral revenue — same-store sales from locations they have owned for more than a year. When this number declines, it means existing SCI locations are serving fewer families or earning less per service. That tells you something critical about the broader market.
If SCI’s same-store funeral revenue is declining even with their scale, brand recognition, and preneed pipeline, an independent in the same metro area is facing the same headwinds. Cremation rates climbing, average revenue per service compressing, families spending less — those trends do not discriminate by ownership structure.
3. Revenue per service
SCI discloses total funeral revenue and total services performed. Divide one by the other. This gives you the average revenue per funeral service at an SCI-operated location — a number that reflects their pricing power, their mix of burial versus cremation, and their preneed contract terms.
Compare this to the revenue-per-service at your acquisition target. If the independent you are evaluating earns significantly less per service than SCI, that may signal pricing upside. If it earns more, understand why — it may be serving a wealthier demographic, or it may be overpricing and losing volume.
4. Operating margins
SCI’s funeral segment operating margin typically runs in the 20 to 28 percent range. Independent funeral homes, according to NFDA industry statistics, average closer to 10 to 15 percent.
That gap is not just about scale. SCI amortizes preneed selling costs over decades, centralizes embalming and transport, and runs shared call centers. An independent owner-operator cannot replicate most of those efficiencies. But the gap tells you something: if your target is running at 8 percent margins, there may be operational upside. If it is already at 18 percent, the current owner is running a tight ship and there is less room to improve.
What SCI’s Buying Patterns Reveal About the Market
SCI does not buy everything. What they pass on is as informative as what they acquire.
Markets SCI avoids
SCI concentrates in metro areas. They have minimal presence in rural markets, small towns, and regions with declining population. If you are looking at a funeral home in a county with under 50,000 people, SCI is not your competition — and that is both good and bad.
Good: you will not face a corporate bidder driving up the price. Bad: SCI’s absence may signal that the market fundamentals — population, death rate projections, average household income — do not support the kind of returns that attract institutional capital.
The cluster strategy
When SCI enters a market, they buy multiple locations. Their Q2 filing likely includes several two- and three-location packages in the same metro area. This is deliberate: clustering lets them share preparation facilities, cross-sell preneed contracts, and present families with “choice” among locations that all feed the same P&L.
For an individual buyer, this creates a specific competitive dynamic. If SCI has three locations in your target market and you are buying a fourth independent, your target is already competing against coordinated pricing and marketing. Factor that into your revenue projections. Our guide on competing with PE-backed acquirers covers defensive strategies in detail.
What SCI is selling
This is the part most people miss. SCI does not just buy — they also divest. When SCI sells a location, it means the location no longer fits their portfolio criteria. That can mean declining volume, regulatory issues, deferred maintenance, or a market that is shrinking.
SCI divestitures sometimes surface as broker listings without disclosing the corporate seller. If a funeral home comes to market and the seller is vague about why they are selling, check whether it was recently an SCI or Carriage Services property. Both companies disclose divestitures in their filings.
Carriage Services and Park Lawn: The Other Public Comps
SCI is the largest, but two other publicly traded funeral operators file useful data.
Carriage Services (NYSE: CSV)
Carriage operates roughly 170 funeral homes and 30 cemeteries. Their SEC filings show acquisition activity at a smaller scale than SCI but with disclosed leverage ratios — they have operated at approximately 4.0x leverage on strategic acquisitions. That leverage number tells you how aggressively lenders will fund funeral home deals at the institutional level.
Their filings also disclose per-location performance metrics in some detail. Because Carriage operates a “standards operating model” that benchmarks each location against internal targets, their disclosures sometimes reveal which performance thresholds justify acquisition versus pass.
Park Lawn Corporation (TSX: PLC)
Park Lawn is a Canadian operator with a growing U.S. footprint. Their investor presentations disclose acquisition multiples more explicitly than SCI’s do. If you want to see what funeral home acquisitions actually trade at in terms of revenue or EBITDA multiples, Park Lawn’s materials are the most transparent of the three public companies.
Together, these three companies give you a triangulated view of what the institutional market pays for funeral homes, how they finance the deals, and which markets attract capital. This is the same competitive intelligence that brokers charge thousands for — available free on EDGAR and SEDAR.
How to Use Public Filing Data in Your Own Deal
Here is a practical framework for applying SCI’s disclosures to your acquisition.
Step 1: Establish the market ceiling
Pull SCI’s average acquisition cost per location from the most recent four quarters. This is the top of the market — the price at which a buyer with unlimited capital and full information is willing to transact. Your deal should be below this unless your target has something SCI’s typical acquisition does not (a dominant market position in a high-income suburb, for example).
Step 2: Benchmark revenue per service
Calculate SCI’s revenue per funeral service from their segment disclosures. Compare it to your target’s trailing twelve months. A significant gap in either direction needs an explanation in your financial model.
Step 3: Stress-test with same-store trends
If SCI’s same-store funeral revenue declined 2 percent year over year, model the same decline into your target’s projections. If the deal still works at negative 2 percent annual revenue growth for the first three years, it is resilient. If it requires growth to hit your return threshold, you are betting against the trend that the largest operator in the industry is experiencing.
Step 4: Check your target’s market against SCI’s footprint
If SCI operates in your target market, understand your competitive position. If they do not, understand why. Both answers inform your due diligence checklist.
Step 5: Use leverage ratios as financing benchmarks
Carriage Services’ disclosed leverage ratios tell you where institutional lenders are comfortable. If Carriage is operating at 4.0x on acquisitions, a lender will likely extend similar terms to an individual buyer with comparable asset quality — though your rate will be higher and your terms less flexible. Capital advisors like Lendesca can model the debt service at these leverage levels and help you understand what the financing actually costs on a single-location deal. For a full breakdown of your options, see our guide on structuring your acquisition financing.
The Limits of Public Data
SCI’s filings are invaluable, but they do not tell you everything.
They do not disclose individual deal prices. The $101 million is an aggregate. You cannot determine what SCI paid for any single location. You get the average, not the distribution.
They do not disclose which locations they acquired. SCI reports the count and the total spend, not the names and addresses. You can sometimes piece this together from state licensing records, local news coverage, and the FTC’s premerger notification filings — but it takes work.
Their cost structure is not yours. SCI’s margins reflect centralized operations at massive scale. Your operating costs as an independent owner will be structurally different. Do not assume you can match their efficiency.
They are a lagging indicator. By the time SCI’s Q2 filing hits EDGAR, those deals closed weeks or months ago. The data tells you where the market was, not necessarily where it is going.
Despite these limits, public filings remain the single best source of verified transaction data in an industry where most deals close privately and brokers guard their comparables.
What the Industry Numbers Frame
The funeral services industry includes roughly 19,000 establishments in the United States, according to IBISWorld industry data. SCI owns approximately 1,500 of those — about 8 percent of all locations, but a significantly larger share of revenue because their locations skew metro and high-volume.
That means 92 percent of the industry is still independently or family-owned. The consolidation wave that started in the 1990s has not ended, but it has slowed. SCI, Carriage, and Park Lawn are still buying, but at a pace that will take decades to meaningfully change the ownership breakdown.
For an individual buyer, this means the opportunity set is enormous. There are thousands of independent funeral homes whose owners are approaching retirement age with no succession plan. The competitive dynamics vary dramatically by market. In some metros, you are buying into a three-way fight with SCI and Foundation Partners. In others, the nearest corporate operator is two counties away.
Understanding where the institutional buyers are active — and where they are not — is the first step in finding a deal where you have a structural advantage. For the full picture of where the industry is headed, see our overview of the broader death care market.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I find SCI’s SEC filings?
The SEC EDGAR database has every filing. Search by company name or CIK number (SCI’s is 0000089089). Start with the most recent 10-Q (quarterly) and 10-K (annual).
How often does SCI report acquisition spending?
Every quarter in their 10-Q filing, typically available 30 to 45 days after the quarter ends. The 10-K annual report provides a full-year summary.
Can I find out exactly which funeral homes SCI bought?
Not directly from the filing. Cross-reference state funeral board licensing changes, local news reports, and FTC premerger notifications. It takes effort, but the information is usually findable within a few months of closing.
Is SCI’s average price per location a good benchmark for my deal?
It is a ceiling, not a target. SCI buys metro, high-volume locations with established preneed books. A single-location independent in a secondary market should trade below SCI’s average. Use it as an upper bound, not a comp.
Do these filings help me negotiate?
Yes. If a seller claims funeral homes are trading at 6x EBITDA and SCI’s filings suggest 3.5 to 4.5x on an aggregate basis, you have audited data to counter with. Public filings remove the information asymmetry that brokers exploit.
The Bottom Line
SCI’s quarterly earnings are the closest thing the funeral home acquisition market has to a transparent price signal. They will not tell you what your specific target is worth. But they will tell you what the largest, most sophisticated buyer in the industry is paying, where they are paying it, and whether the market they are buying into is growing or shrinking.
That is competitive intelligence that costs you nothing but the time to read a filing. Use it.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice. Consult qualified professionals for guidance specific to your situation. All data referenced from SEC filings is publicly available and subject to revision.
For a comprehensive walkthrough of every step in the acquisition process, start with our complete guide to buying a funeral home. For the full financial framework, see the funeral home valuation guide.