U.S. Funeral Homes Market Intelligence Report 2026

Disclaimer

This report has been prepared by STOC Advisory, LLC for informational and discussion purposes only. It is based on proprietary research, data analysis, third-party sources believed to be reliable, and data available as of the date of preparation. While reasonable care has been taken in its preparation, STOC Advisory makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or future reliability of any data, estimates, assumptions, or conclusions contained herein.

The views and findings in this report are intended to support strategic evaluation and do not constitute investment, legal, tax, accounting, or other professional advice, nor a recommendation to pursue or decline any transaction or course of action. Forward-looking statements and market views are inherently subject to uncertainty and may be affected by changes in market conditions, competitive dynamics, regulatory developments, data quality, and other factors beyond STOC Advisory’s control.

This report pairs external industry research with STOC Advisory’s location-level analysis. The proprietary analysis supports market selection and target research; it does not replace company-level financial, legal, or operational diligence, and it is not a complete legal-entity census of the industry. Recipients are expected to apply independent judgment and conduct their own diligence. This work may not be published, reproduced, or distributed without the explicit written permission of STOC Advisory.

Individual independent acquisition targets remain anonymized in this report; owner and contact information gathered during sourcing is maintained separately and does not appear here. Institutional buyers and platforms, including public strategic chains, PE-backed platforms, and family-owned or private consolidators, are named where supported by public sources. All 26 named platform, chain, consolidator, and watchlist groups are linked to public sources; 22 of 26 carry fully Verified or Reported status, and sponsor identity or current footprint remains partly Pending for 4 groups as of August 2026. Location rosters harvested from the major groups were reconciled against the dataset so that platform-owned homes trading under local brands are classified to their parents, and roster locations the scrape had not captured were added as records, making named-group counts roster-reconciled (smaller-group counts remain scrape-observed). Independent counts combine an observed scrape with a Texas directory census; record counts are benchmarked against Census Bureau County Business Patterns 2023 (96.7% of counted employer establishments nationally; used as a count benchmark only). Ownership percentages are shares of classified records stated with direction: independent shares are floors and consolidated shares ceilings, with low-coverage states flagged, per the Methodology appendix. Ownership verification applies to the named institutional groups. Distances are straight-line miles, with no drive-time adjustment.

Any regulatory discussion, including references to state funeral licensure and the FTC Funeral Rule, is intended as a strategic screening overlay only and does not constitute legal advice; state-specific funeral establishment licensing, pre-need trust and insurance regulation, employment, and transaction counsel should be consulted before any acquisition, entity structuring, licensing, or compliance decision.

Contents

Table of Contents

Part I: Thesis and Priority Markets

Executive Summary

The independent share of the observed market, the succession clock, and where to act first

Priority Consolidation Markets

The deep independent pools and the 16 cremation-forward metros inside them

Current Platform and Sponsor Landscape

Who is buying funeral homes, who backs them, and how thin the institutional field runs

Part II: Market and Geography

National Supply Map

Where independent supply concentrates, state by state and metro by metro

State Opportunity Table

Every state ranked by independent depth against the tracked chain footprint

Part III: The Independent Opportunity

Independent Operator Base

Four segments that sort the 11,585 observed independents by who to call first

Cremation Economics and Service Signals

The disposition shift and the cremation-visible independent pool

Part IV: Execution and Reference

STOC Execution Framework

Mandate-specific market selection, succession sourcing, outreach, and pipeline execution

Methodology Appendix

Scope, denominators, observed-vs-known universe, and ownership verification

Named Ownership Appendix

Every named platform and sponsor, observed and watchlist, with source-verified status

Deep Dive Appendix

Provider density, review visibility, density tiers, and data-coverage indicators

Key Contacts at STOC Advisory

Corporate development and market intelligence contacts

All location counts, market groups, segments, and maps: STOC Advisory proprietary tracked-location funeral home dataset, August 2026 (14,680 location records: 12,293 proprietary scrape less 9 standalone-cemetery chain records, 1,450 roster-added named-group locations, and 946 Texas directory-census independents). Named ownership cross-checked against public sources as of August 2026. External industry context is cited per page and never combined with proprietary counts.

Executive Summary

At Least 85% of U.S. Funeral Home Locations Remain Independent

12,531 tracked independent locations face a tracked consolidated footprint of 2,149 locations, five groups holding 85.2% of it, a retirement wave, and a cremation shift that rewards early scale.

The STOC View

Deathcare has been consolidating for sixty years, and the wave stalled: after the 1990s roll-up race ended in Loewen’s bankruptcy and years of SCI divestitures, the buyer side concentrated instead of spreading, and five groups now hold 85.2% of the tracked consolidated footprint, SCI alone 60.9%. The result is a $23.9B industry (IBISWorld) in which at least 85% of locations are still independent (chains over-index on revenue through combos and pre-need), with, in most markets, no tracked institutional buyer other than SCI, if that. Part of that vacuum is selectivity, since the majors buy where combos and growth demographics clear their overhead; the rest is open to a buyer whose cost structure clears where the majors’ does not: Pennsylvania’s 919 independents face 32 tracked chain locations; even Texas, SCI’s home state, is 84.9% independent after a full directory count. What makes this cycle different from the 1990s is the seller side, met by a small field of disciplined buyers where the last cycle had competing leveraged roll-ups. Roughly half of owners told NFDA’s 2023 survey they plan to retire by 2028, and cremation, at 62.8% of 2025 dispositions, is compressing revenue per call faster than single-site operators can restructure, turning a fragmented owner base into motivated sellers. The play is therefore to leave SCI’s dense markets alone and become the second institutional buyer in the rest: deep-supply, lightly consolidated, cremation-forward metros, entered through multi-location independents, before the retirement wave meets today’s thin institutional buyer field.

12,531

Independent Locations

85.4% of the 14,680-record universe; scrape-observed operators are 98% single-site

85.2%

Top-5 Share of Tracked Chain Base

Five groups hold 1,831 of 2,149 tracked consolidated locations; SCI alone holds 1,308 (60.9%)

62.8%

U.S. Cremation Rate, 2025

2025 actual (CANA 2026 report, May 2026); heading to 82.3% by 2045 (NFDA)

Market Implications

Enter the whitespace before the majors’ next cycle

Colorado (45.7% tracked-chain share) and Arizona (41.7%) show what a market looks like where the combo-and-growth playbook has already run; the deepest pools show the opposite: Pennsylvania holds 919 independents at a 96.6% runway, Illinois 633 at 92.4%, and Texas, once counted against full national directories, 1,158 at 84.9%. The map on page 7 and the state table on page 8 show that split for every market.

Build first where independents already market cremation

Dallas-Fort Worth (73.2% of scrape independents cremation-visible), Charlotte (65.2%), and Riverside (64.3%) lead the 16 cremation-forward deep pools (metro scrape bases on page 5), where direct-cremation entrants already compete on price. Cremation-visible measures marketing posture on independents’ own websites; Texas’s statewide disposition mix still trails the national cremation rate on NFDA state data, and margin defense in these markets rewards scaled platforms first. The traditional-mix pools remain the scale play once a cremation-capable platform exists. Detail on pages 5 and 10.

Anchor on the 215 scrape-observed multi-location independents, sourced through succession

They run 536 observed locations, with the largest tracked clusters in Baltimore (46 multi-site locations) and Washington (29); the counts are floors and unevenly detected across metros (detail on page 9). Anchors bring management, licensure coverage, and local brand equity a new platform cannot build quickly. NFDA’s 2023 owner survey put roughly half of owners on a retire-by-2028 timeline, and 42% of those without exit plans would consider selling for the right offer, so a proprietary succession pipeline beats waiting for auctions. Segmentation follows on page 9.

Source. STOC Advisory proprietary tracked-location funeral home dataset, August 2026: proprietary scrape (12,293 records; 12,284 retained after standalone-cemetery removal), roster-added named-group locations (1,450; company directories), and Texas directory-census independents (946; national funeral directories, deduplicated and verified). Independent and consolidated percentages are shares of classified dataset records: consolidated counts are tracked against company directories (roster-reconciled), independent counts combine the observed scrape with a Texas directory census. Record counts are benchmarked against Census CBP 2023 (96.7% of the 15,183 counted employer establishments nationally, a count benchmark; median state coverage 98%), so shares are stated with direction: independent shares are floors and consolidated shares ceilings at the tracked groups’ observed footprints; smaller groups and watchlist buyers report totals above those footprints, largely cemeteries and combo properties, bounded in the Methodology appendix. Industry size: IBISWorld Funeral Homes in the US, accessed August 2026. Cremation rate: CANA 2026 Annual Statistics Report, May 2026; trajectory: NFDA 2025 Cremation and Burial Report, October 2025. Owner retirement: 2023 NFDA owner survey via Bisnow, February 2026. Scope and limitations: Methodology appendix.

Priority Consolidation Markets

Thirty-Four Metros Hold Deep Independent Pools, and Sixteen of Them Are Already Cremation-Forward

Transparent, sequential rules on classified independent depth and cremation-visible mix; every metro lands in exactly one group.

Part I: Thesis and Priority Markets

Across 840 observed CBSAs (metropolitan and micropolitan areas), 34 clear 50 or more independent locations each and together hold 4,207 independents, 33.6% of the independent base. The split that matters for sequencing is the cremation-visible mix: 16 of the 34 are at or above 50%, and 18 remain traditional-weighted, led by New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, three of the four largest pools in the country. San Antonio enters the deep-pool tier on the Texas directory census, and Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth deepen from roughly 50 to roughly 190 independents each on it; Boston (216), Providence (72), Hartford (50), and the New Jersey sides of the New York and Philadelphia metros enter on the Northeast ZIP repair (Methodology).

840

Observed CBSAs

CBSA-assigned records: 12,592 of 14,680

Deep Pools (50+ Independents)

4,207 independents, 33.6% of the base

Cremation-Forward Deep Pools

1,828 independents at 50%+ cremation-visible mix

Traditional-Mix Deep Pools

2,379 independents, led by New York (683)

Market Group Rules (assigned sequentially; unrounded values used at thresholds)

Group	Rule	Metros	Independents
A. Cremation-Forward Deep Pool	50+ classified independents AND cremation-visible share of scrape independents at or above 50.0%	16	1,828
B. Traditional-Mix Deep Pool	50+ classified independents, cremation-visible share below 50.0%	18	2,379
C. Mid-Sized Independent	25 to 49 classified independents	50	1,911
D. Smaller Observed	All remaining CBSA-assigned metros	756	4,894

Boundary cases: Chicago sits in Group A at 50.1% cremation-visible; Virginia Beach (48.6%) and Detroit (48.3%) sit in Group B. Groups sum to the 11,012 independents with a CBSA assignment; 1,519 independents sit outside any CBSA or lack a usable, state-consistent ZIP or city match. Cremation-visible shares use scrape independents. The deepest Northeast pools partly reflect over-built, burial-weighted legacy markets, which is why Western metros print leaner counts.

Group A: All 16 Cremation-Forward Deep Pools

Metro	Independent	Cremation-Visible	Multi-Site Indep.	Tracked Chains	Tracked Share
Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI	351	50.1%	2	23	6.1%
Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX	192	51.9%	0	55	22.3%
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX	188	73.2%	0	31	14.2%
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	146	54.8%	29	23	13.6%
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA	128	60.9%	0	31	19.5%
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL	105	51.4%	1	40	27.6%
Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD	100	54.0%	46	9	8.3%
Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC	89	65.2%	9	24	21.2%
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA	86	52.3%	1	25	22.5%
Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, IN	78	60.3%	0	11	12.4%
Providence-Warwick, RI-MA	72	51.4%	2	17	19.1%
Columbus, OH	61	55.7%	0	11	15.3%
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI	60	56.7%	0	14	18.9%
San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX	58	60.0%	0	11	15.9%
San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA	58	63.8%	0	15	20.5%
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA	56	64.3%	0	17	23.3%

Cremation-Visible = share of the metro’s scrape independents with a visible cremation offering on their own websites: a visibility signal only (directory-census records carry no service signals, so Texas rates rest on thin scrape bases: San Antonio 20, Houston 52, Dallas-Fort Worth 56). Multi-Site Indep. = locations run by independent operators with two or more locations; domain-grouped counts are floors and uneven across metros, and Texas zeros are structural, since directory-census records carry no operator identity. Tracked Chains = named-group locations carrying this metro’s code; 1,580 of the 2,149 tracked consolidated locations carry a metro code, so metro consolidated counts are floors of chain presence and metro shares on average understate it; state-level shares, which carry the full roster, govern (Methodology).

Group A: build where independents already market the mix

Dallas-Fort Worth (73.2% cremation-visible, 188 independents on the full Texas count), Charlotte (65.2%), Riverside (64.3%), and San Francisco (63.8%) lead the cremation-visible mixes. San Antonio joins the tier on the census and Houston deepens to 192 independents; direct-cremation brands are already present in these markets, and scaled platforms defend margin best.

Group B: the biggest pools, the slowest mix

New York (683 independents, 42.9% cremation-visible), Philadelphia (320, 40.9%), and Pittsburgh (234, 47.9%) hold three of the four deepest pools in the country with a burial-weighted mix, larger books per call today and a longer conversion runway.

Key Read: Depth, mix, and consolidation all diverge. Four of the five largest pools are traditional-weighted Northeast metros, while Chicago, the second largest, tips cremation-forward and holds Group A’s largest pool, alongside Sun Belt and mid-continent metros; tracked chain presence inside Group A runs from 55 locations in Houston and 40 in Miami down to 9 in Baltimore, with Chicago’s 23 the lowest share at 6.1% (metro counts are floors; state shares govern). The full Texas count shows what thin coverage had hidden: Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth hold deep pools of roughly 190 independents each at 22.3% and 14.2% tracked-chain share. A sponsor sequencing both plays enters long-runway Group A metros first for margin defense and Group B for scale.

Source. STOC Advisory proprietary CBSA market analysis, August 2026 (roster-reconciled ownership). Denominators: 12,592 CBSA-assigned records; group rules printed above; cremation-visible shares use each metro’s scrape independents.

Current Platform and Sponsor Landscape

Five Groups Own 85.2% of All Tracked Chain Locations, and SCI Alone Owns 60.9%

2,149 tracked named-group locations, roster-reconciled, 14.6% of dataset records, across 20 observed groups; footprints reconciled against company directories

Part I: Thesis and Priority Markets

The tracked consolidated footprint is 2,149 locations, 14.6% of the 14,680-record universe, across the 20 observed groups, and it is a pyramid: five groups hold 85.2% of it, the next seven hold another 12.7%, and everything else is regional. Location rosters harvested from the major groups’ own directories (2,143 roster rows, including SCI’s full consumer directory) were matched against the scrape, reclassifying 466 records collected as independent targets; the 1,450 roster locations the scrape had missed were added as records. The largest chain footprints now mirror the companies’ own directories: SCI shows 1,308 funeral-service locations against its reported 1,495 at June 30, 2026 (the gap is cemetery-side directory pages and directory lag; verified funeral-home combos are retained). The 26-group crosswalk on page 13 is the source of truth on ownership claims.

2,149

Named-Group Locations

Roster-complete; 14.6% of 14,680 records

85.2%

Top-5 Share of Tracked Chain Base

SCI, Park Lawn, FPG, Carriage, Everstory: 1,831 of 2,149

~18%

SCI Share of NA Deathcare Revenue

Company’s own estimate, FY2025 Form 10-K

$17.0B

SCI Pre-Need Backlog

Unfulfilled pre-need contracts, year-end 2025

Ownership of All Location Records (14,680; scrape, roster-added, and Texas directory census; standalone cemeteries excluded)

9.9%

85.4%

Public Strategic Chain 9.9% (1,449)

PE / VC-Backed Platform 3.2% (469)

Family / Private Consolidator 1.6% (231)

Independent Locations 85.4% (12,531)

Component shares are rounded independently; unrounded values sum to the 14.6% consolidated total.

Largest Observed Groups and Their Owners (full 26-group crosswalk in the Named Ownership Appendix)

Parent / Network	Sponsor / Owner	Category	Obs. Loc.	Source
Service Corporation International	Public, NYSE: SCI (Dignity Memorial, Neptune Society)	Public	1,308	SCI IR
Park Lawn (Viridian Holdings LP)	Homesteaders Life + Birch Hill Equity (Aug 2024); ~215 funeral homes	PE-Backed	188	Park Lawn
Foundation Partners Group	Undisclosed investors, Aug 2025 (prior Access Holdings); brands on page 13	PE-Backed	136	FPG release
Carriage Services	Public, NYSE: CSV	Public	132	Carriage
Everstory Partners	Axar Capital Management (StoneMor take-private, 2022)	PE-Backed	67	Everstory
NorthStar Memorial Group (Smart Cremation)	Privately held, Houston, TX	Family / Private	63	NSMG
Vertin	Vertin family (Tom Vertin; est. 1904), Edina, MN	Family / Private	61	Vertin
Milestone Funeral Partners	Rosewood Private Investments (Mar 2024)	PE-Backed	40	Rosewood

Counts are dataset location records (scrape plus roster-added, standalone cemeteries excluded). Remaining gaps vs company-reported totals are cemeteries, combos, and directory lag; excluding chains’ cemetery sides understates combo-anchored positions (SCI runs 316 combination locations). Platform-owned homes overwhelmingly trade under founding family names (Riemann Family under Park Lawn, Darling Fischer under Carriage, Corey-Kerlin under SCI).

Key Read: Deathcare consolidation runs through pre-need books, combo real estate, and locally retained brands, which is why roster reconciliation matters: with the buyer side tied to the groups’ own directories, five groups hold 85.2% of the tracked footprint, SCI is roughly seven times the size of the next group, and everything below the second tier is regional. For a new platform, most metros show one national buyer and at most one regional one on the map, and every active acquirer bids beyond its mapped footprint, which is why speed to the owner decides these markets.

Most Active Acquirers, 2024-2026 (observed status shown; watchlist buyers never counted in observed totals)

Acquirer	Sponsor / Parent	Activity	In Observed Universe
Park Lawn (Viridian Holdings)	Homesteaders Life + Birch Hill Equity	~215 funeral homes; 20 Mississippi homes (Mar 2026); Strode and Mercer-Adams, OK (Jun 2026)	In observed universe
Carriage Services	Public (NYSE: CSV)	155 funeral homes; Knoxville-market entry May 2026; “advanced conversations” pipeline stated August 2026	In observed universe
Milestone Funeral Partners	Rosewood Private Investments	Zero to ~90 Northeast firms since 2021; sellers can retain equity; in talks for ~10 more (Feb 2026)	In observed universe
Fidelity Memorial Group	Saw Mill Capital (recap Oct 2025)	40+ properties; Deal Funeral Directors, Statesboro, GA (Apr 2026); HQ Garden City, GA	In observed universe (3 locations)
Everstory Partners	Axar Capital Management	460 properties (374 cemeteries, 73 funeral homes, 13 crematories); Franklin Memorial Park, NJ (Jun 2026)	In observed universe
Jersey Memorial Group	Hernandez family (founded 2009)	18 funeral homes across NJ, PA, WV; largest privately owned NJ operator; actively acquiring	Not in observed universe

The full watchlist (Jersey Memorial Group, Vineyard Capital Partners, Broylman Memorial Group, Big Sky Capital Partners, Frary, and Gibraltar Remembrance) appears on page 13 with sources and status. Milestone reports ~90 firms; its public directory lists the 40 locations counted here (reported firms exceed mapped locations where brands share premises or directories lag). Verified watchlist footprints stay classified independent, inside the one-point bound (Methodology).

Source. STOC Advisory location-level analysis base (ownership composition, roster-reconciled August 2026); named-group ownership cross-checked against the public sources listed in the Named Ownership Appendix. SCI figures: SCI Q2 2026 release and FY2025 Form 10-K.

National Supply Map

Texas, Pennsylvania, and New York Hold the Deepest Independent Supply

State fill shows each state’s independent location count; green bubbles size independent supply at the metro level; hover tooltips add each state’s tracked chain location count and share. Company names and pins are intentionally excluded.

Part II: Market and Geography

Select a state:

Independent Locations by State600+300 to 599150 to 29950 to 149Fewer than 50Bubble size = independent locations per metro

Largest Metro Independent Pool

New York metro, 683 independent locations at a 42.9% cremation-visible mix; the metro spans NY, NJ, and PA; state drill-downs (here and on the next page) show the whole metro under each member state, while the state table itself counts every record once, in its own state.

Largest Cremation-Forward Pools

Chicago holds 351 independents at 50.1% cremation-visible; Houston holds 192 and Dallas-Fort Worth 188 after the Texas directory census; Washington holds 146 at 54.8%.

Anchor Clusters for Platform Creation

Baltimore (46) and Washington (29) hold the most locations run by multi-site independent operators, the natural anchor acquisitions for a new platform (domain-grouped counts are floors and uneven across metros); every state is ranked on the next page.

Source. STOC Advisory proprietary state and CBSA analysis, August 2026. State fill bands: fewer than 50, 50 to 149, 150 to 299, 300 to 599, and 600+. No company-level pins or labels. Map rendering: Leaflet (vector only, no external basemap); state boundaries from PublicaMundi MappingAPI (us-states.json).

State Opportunity Table

Independent Supply and Runway by State

Every state with classified records plus the District of Columbia, independent vs tracked chain locations on a shared scale; cremation mix is covered on pages 5 and 10

Part II: Market and Geography

	State	Independent	Tracked Chains	Tracked Share	Runway
1	Texas	1,158	206	15.1%	84.9%
2	Pennsylvania	919	32	3.4%	96.6%
3	New York	739	120	14.0%	86.0%
4	Illinois	633	52	7.6%	92.4%
5	California	567	207	26.7%	73.3%
6	Ohio	550	61	10.0%	90.0%
7	North Carolina	507	97	16.1%	83.9%
8	Florida	463	222	32.4%	67.6%
9	New Jersey	453	31	6.4%	93.6%
10	Indiana	398	52	11.6%	88.4%
11	Kentucky	331	23	6.5%	93.5%
12	Massachusetts	329	39	10.6%	89.4%
13	Tennessee	324	91	21.9%	78.1%
14	South Carolina	313	23	6.8%	93.2%
15	Virginia	307	50	14.0%	86.0%
16	Mississippi	297	48	13.9%	86.1%
17	Georgia	277	56	16.8%	83.2%
18	Arkansas	256	15	5.5%	94.5%
19	Michigan*	255	46	15.3%	84.7%
20	Maryland	249	22	8.1%	91.9%
21	Wisconsin*	231	33	12.5%	87.5%
22	Missouri*	210	41	16.3%	83.7%
23	Alabama	206	47	18.6%	81.4%
24	Louisiana	203	41	16.8%	83.2%
25	Iowa*	197	10	4.8%	95.2%
26	Oklahoma	197	31	13.6%	86.4%
27	Kansas	180	19	9.5%	90.5%
28	Minnesota	171	46	21.2%	78.8%
29	West Virginia	157	11	6.5%	93.5%
30	Connecticut	154	35	18.5%	81.5%
31	Washington	137	46	25.1%	74.9%
32	Nebraska	113	14	11.0%	89.0%
33	Oregon	105	27	20.5%	79.5%
34	Colorado	89	75	45.7%	54.3%
35	Utah	83	8	8.8%	91.2%
36	Arizona	74	53	41.7%	58.3%
37	South Dakota	71	2	2.7%	97.3%
38	Maine	67	12	15.2%	84.8%
39	Rhode Island	59	15	20.3%	79.7%
40	Idaho	56	11	16.4%	83.6%
41	Montana	55	4	6.8%	93.2%
42	North Dakota	51	7	12.1%	87.9%
43	New Hampshire	50	9	15.3%	84.7%
44	Delaware	48	0	0.0%	100.0%
45	New Mexico	48	14	22.6%	77.4%
46	Vermont	38	1	2.6%	97.4%
47	Nevada	29	17	37.0%	63.0%
48	District of Columbia	26	2	7.1%	92.9%
49	Wyoming	22	8	26.7%	73.3%
50	Hawaii	10	15	60.0%	40.0%
51	Alaska*	6	2	25.0%	75.0%
	U.S. total (state-assigned)	12,468	2,149	14.7%	85.3%

Denominators: 12,468 independent locations (11,522 scrape plus 946 Texas directory-census records) and 2,149 tracked consolidated locations with a state assignment. Bar length scales to the state’s classified total (Texas, 1,364, sets the full width); the split shows independent vs tracked chains. Runway = independent share of classified locations. Record counts are benchmarked against Census CBP 2023 (NAICS 812210): 96.7% of CBP’s 15,183 employer establishments nationally, median state coverage 98%; states below 70% of their CBP count are marked * (consolidated shares there are ceilings; Methodology). The census pass was applied to Texas only, so other under-covered states’ printed runways are floors. Delaware’s count of zero tracked named-group locations was cross-checked against the major chains’ own locators. Runway measures ownership headroom only and carries no signal on demand or willingness to sell; the deepest Northeast pools partly reflect over-built, burial-weighted markets, and New York law separates cemetery from funeral home ownership, limiting the combo model there.

Key Read: Texas, SCI’s home state, holds the largest tracked independent pool, 1,158 locations at an 84.9% runway; it is also the only state counted against full national directories, so every other state’s pool and runway are floors. Pennsylvania pairs the second-largest pool with 96.6%, Illinois 633 independents with 92.4%, while Colorado (45.7% tracked-chain share) and Arizona (41.7%) carry the heaviest tracked-chain shares among sizable markets. SCI leads the tracked-chain column in 36 of the 50 state markets with tracked chain presence (Delaware shows none); Park Lawn, Vertin, Milestone, NorthStar and FPG lead the remainder, three small states tied. Where runway is long and supply deep, a platform builds free of an entrenched national’s footprint and pre-need book, though nationals can still bid in.

Source. STOC Advisory proprietary state analysis, August 2026; state totals reconcile to 12,468 independent and 2,149 tracked consolidated locations with state assignments. Consolidated counts track the 20 named groups’ own directories; shares are shares of classified records, benchmarked against Census CBP 2023 per the Methodology appendix.

Independent Operator Base

Four Segments Sort the 11,585 Independents by Who to Call First

Multi-location operators, high-visibility singles, the cremation-visible pool, and the deeper-research remainder; each location in exactly one segment

Part III: The Independent Opportunity

The 11,585 scrape-observed independent locations resolve into 11,264 operators through validated website and business-identity grouping; operators that share no website domain resolve as separate singles, so multi-site counts are floors, and unevenly so across metros (branch chapels on separate domains resolve as singles). Segments are assigned sequentially: operating scale first, then public visibility, then cremation capability, so each independent location lands in exactly one segment and the four segments sum to the base.

11,585

Scrape-Observed Independents

98.1% of operators run one site

536

Multi-Site Indep. Locations

215 operators with 2+ observed sites

581

High-Visibility Singles

100+ reviews and a 4.5+ rating

4,452

Cremation-Visible Singles

The margin-defense pool

Independent Base by Operator Segment (11,585 scrape-observed locations; sequential assignment; the 946 Texas directory-census records carry no operator identity and are excluded here)

The Four Operator Segments

Multi-location operators

Independent locations of operators with two or more observed sites (215 operators): the natural platform anchors and first calls.

429 locations in 2-to-3-site operators; 107 in operators with 4 or more sites; the largest observed operator runs 22 locations.

536

4.6% of base

High-visibility single locations

Single-location operators clearing a screen of 100 or more public reviews at a 4.5+ rating: established local brands whose review volume proxies public visibility; confirmed call volume is a diligence question.

Median 153 reviews in this segment against 14 across all scrape independents.

581

5.0% of base

Cremation-visible single locations

Remaining singles with a visible cremation offering: the pool where the disposition shift is already part of the operating model.

Screens directly against a cremation-forward market thesis; capacity (on-site crematory vs trade cremation) is a diligence item outside the dataset.

4,452

38.4% of base

Deeper-research single locations

Singles without a strong visibility or cremation signal: the traditional heartland pool, thinnest in public data, where succession candidates must be identified through direct research.

Requires enrichment before outreach; skews to lower-population ZIPs (median ZIP population 9,520 vs 10,260 across all scrape independents).

6,016

51.9% of base

Key Read: The call order is 1 then 2 then 3: anchors first because they bring management and licensure in place, scarce assets in a sector short of licensed directors, proven brands second for durable local demand, cremation-capable singles third for margin defense as the mix shifts. Segment 4 is half the base: 6,016 locations largely invisible online and least contested, where succession candidates can only be surfaced through direct research.

Source. STOC Advisory operator-segment analysis, August 2026. Operators derived from validated website-domain grouping; the supplied name-frequency location-count field is retained as a legacy column and not used. Segments are mutually exclusive and sum to 11,585.

Cremation Economics and Service Signals

62.8% of U.S. Deaths Now End in Cremation, Heading Above 70% by 2033

The disposition shift and the 44.5% of independents already visibly cremation-capable

Part III: The Independent Opportunity

The mix shift is the sector’s core margin story. A funeral with viewing and burial carries an $8,300 median cost against $6,280 with cremation, and direct cremation averages $2,202, with budget providers under $1,000. Disposition disruptors are already in the tracked data (direct-cremation brands After.com, VC-backed, NorthStar’s Smart Cremation, and Foundation Partners’ Tulip, plus human-composting Earth Funeral), concentrated in Western markets where the cremation rate runs highest. Among the 11,585 scrape-observed independents, 5,160 (44.5%) visibly market a cremation offering; nearly every home can arrange one, so the signal measures marketing posture, and the other half faces the shift without visible positioning.

62.8%

Cremation Rate, 2025 (Actual)

CANA 2026 report, May 2026; 82.3% projected by 2045 (NFDA)

$8,300 vs $6,280

Median Funeral Cost

Burial vs cremation, 2023 NFDA study; direct cremation ~$2,202

44.5%

Independents Cremation-Visible

5,160 of 11,585 scrape-observed; overlapping website signal

Disposition-Disruptor Records

After.com 6, Smart Cremation 8 (direct cremation); Earth Funeral 3 (human composting); Tulip inside FPG

Service Signals Among Independents (overlapping; never summed)

Visible Signal	Locations	Share of 11,585 Scrape-Observed
Grief support / aftercare	8,079	69.7%
Memorial / celebration of life	6,097	52.6%
Cremation offering	5,160	44.5%
Online services / arrangement	4,544	39.2%
Transport / repatriation	1,734	15.0%
Cemetery on site (combo property)	517	4.5%

Website- and listing-visible signals; confirmed service revenue mix requires diligence. A location can carry several signals. Burial and pre-planning flags were collected but excluded: their observed rates (5.6% and 5.7% of independents) are implausibly low against near-universal real-world offerings, so the signal is unreliable; the cremation flag is detection-limited for the same reason, making cremation-visible shares floors.

U.S. Cremation Rate, Actual and Projected (% of dispositions)

Solid: actuals (CANA 2026 report: 61.8% in 2024, 62.8% in 2025). Dashed: projections, CANA above 70% by 2033 and NFDA 82.3% by 2045.

Where the Margin Defense Happens

Scale defends cremation margin three ways: owned crematory capacity instead of trade fees (outside the dataset; a first diligence question on every target), pre-need books that lock mix and pricing years ahead, and online arrangement that meets the roughly 30% of consumers willing to arrange fully online. 36% of NFDA-member homes already offer online cremation arrangement. The regulatory floor is rising too: every state requires funeral licensure from January 2027 (Colorado SB 24-173 closes the last gap), and the FTC Funeral Rule remains under an open rulemaking, with mandatory online price disclosure the amendment on the table and no final rule as of mid-2026, a change that would accelerate the price transparency direct-cremation entrants trade on. On the buy side, a target’s pre-need book cuts both ways: trust-vs-insurance structure, funding level, and transferability reprice a deal before any multiple applies.

Key Read: The cremation-visible pool is where consolidation economics work today; the traditional pool is where supply is deepest and least contested. The 16 Group A metros on page 5 concentrate the cremation-visible pool: 1,828 independents in cremation-forward deep pools, in markets where direct-cremation entrants have set the price floor.

Source. Cremation rates: CANA 2026 Annual Statistics Report (May 2026) and NFDA 2025 Cremation and Burial Report (October 2025). Costs: NFDA 2023 General Price List Study (latest available); direct-cremation pricing: US Funerals Online, March 2026. Consumer and online-arrangement figures: NFDA 2025 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study, October 2025. Licensure: Colorado SB 24-173 coverage, December 2025. Signal counts: STOC Advisory proprietary tracked-location dataset, August 2026. External figures are context only and never combined with proprietary counts.

STOC Execution Framework

From Market Intelligence to a Succession-Sourcing Pipeline

Market selection, owner and decision-maker enrichment, outreach execution, and pipeline tracking aligned to acquisition criteria

Part IV: Execution and Reference

STOC applies the market intelligence through a mandate-specific corporate development workflow. Priority markets, operator segments, enrichment criteria, and outreach are aligned to each acquisition mandate. In funeral homes the sourcing motion is succession-led: owners sell on retirement timelines, and a quality firm that reaches the industry’s broker network draws multiple bidders, so proprietary presence ahead of any process compounds. Two external anchors frame every mandate: deathcare broker benchmarks put quality funeral home transactions at roughly 6x to 8x EBITDA with real estate included, small single-site homes trading well below that, the spread that creates the platform arbitrage, net of integration cost and asset-quality differences; and U.S. deaths ran 3.07 million in 2024, with boomer demographics pointing higher through the 2040s.

Deep-Pool Metros

16 cremation-forward plus 18 traditional-mix

536

Multi-Site Indep. Locations

Across 215 multi-location independent operators

581

High-Visibility Singles

Proven local brands, screened by mandate

Operator Segments

Sequential, mutually exclusive call order

STOC Sourcing OS

Sourcing OS is the fund-level infrastructure behind STOC’s Corporate Development Support offering. It brings market mapping, target segmentation, decision-maker enrichment, outreach execution, and pipeline tracking into one system.

Execution Sequence

Confirm priority markets

Compare metros on independent depth, cremation-visible mix, and multi-site independent presence, then organize the 34 deep pools (and any mandate-specific geographies) into dedicated sourcing projects.

Build the target universe by segment

Load the independent universe and organize it into the four operator segments, then into focused lists by geography, operator scale, cremation capability, and service breadth for each market thesis.

Enrich owners and decision-makers

Owner names, emails, and social profiles gathered during sourcing are maintained in the working dataset, separate from this report. Complete the coverage: verify ownership, add succession signals (owner age, next-generation involvement), and prioritize the deeper-research segment for manual work.

Execute market-specific outreach

Launch succession-framed campaigns from the prioritized lists, tailored by geography, operator scale, cremation orientation, and acquisition strategy; retiring owners respond to continuity of name, staff, and community standing; roll-up pitches lose them.

Track responses and pipeline

Capture activity, responses, interest, and pipeline stage in one system; interested owners route to follow-up and market feedback returns to the database.

Refine market and segmentation criteria

Use campaign performance and closed-transaction feedback to refine market selection, enrichment rules, and segment definitions across the portfolio.

Mandate-Specific Application

STOC can turn this analysis into prioritized target lists, enriched decision-makers, succession-framed outreach, and tracked pipeline for your acquisition criteria.

Discuss Your Mandate

Source. STOC Advisory Sourcing OS and Corporate Development Support framework applied to the proprietary operator universe; the sequence is tailored to each fund’s acquisition criteria. External anchors: The Foresight Companies transaction benchmarks, 2024; CDC/NCHS 2024 final mortality (Data Brief 548, January 2026). External figures are context only, never combined with proprietary counts.

Methodology Appendix

Methodology, Definitions, and Verification Framework

The notes below establish the denominator, scope, and interpretation used for each analytical component.

Topic	Methodology note
Exhibit denominators	Each exhibit uses the denominator stated on the page. Ownership composition uses all 14,680 location records (12,293 scrape less 9 standalone cemeteries, plus 1,450 roster-added and 946 Texas directory-census records). Depth exhibits (state and metro independent counts, market-group thresholds) include directory-census records; signal-based exhibits (cremation mix, segments, reviews, distances) use only scrape records (11,522 state-assigned; 10,293 CBSA-assigned post-repair; 11,585 total scrape independents). Distance analyses use the 12,093 scrape records with usable coordinates; roster-added records carry no coordinates, reviews, or service signals and are excluded from those exhibits. 935 of 1,450 roster-added records carry a CBSA via city lookup (post-repair).
Texas directory census	Texas held 212 scrape independents against a far larger real base, so all Texas listings were harvested from two national directories (US Funerals Online; Tribute Archive, 1,275 listings), deduplicated on normalized name and city, and filtered of churches, trade services, premises-less referral networks, and standalone cemeteries. Five wide-area cremation brands, each listed under dozens of service towns, were verified on their own websites and collapsed to their single physical sites. After matching against every existing Texas record (297 already present) and setting aside 12 chain-branded listings, the 946 unmatched independents were added (TXDIR-0001..0946) with name, city, state, and CBSA where resolvable; no coordinates, reviews, or signals.
Metro-assignment repair	A state-consistency audit found 870 records assigned to metros outside their own state (corrupted source ZIPs; an early city-only lookup). 99 were reassigned via city-plus-state matching, 771 cleared to state totals only, 49 roster and census records gained a metro. A final pass restored the seven leading-zero-ZIP states (CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, RI, VT), whose ZIPs had lost the leading zero and been right-padded (06401 stored as 64010): recovery and crosswalk re-join assigned 1,187 of their 1,292 records, adding Boston, Providence, and Hartford and completing the New York and Philadelphia metros. Every assignment lies in a member state of its CBSA.
Standalone-cemetery removal	A name-pattern review found 13 chain records with cemetery-only names. Four verified funeral-and-cemetery combos were retained (Greenlawn Southwest and Oakmont, Carriage; Holy Sepulchre, CFCS; Arch L. Heady at Resthaven, SCI). Nine standalone cemeteries were removed (four NorthStar, three Everstory, two SCI), most with the parent’s funeral home already recorded in the same city. Independent-side records are unaffected.
Observed vs. known universe	Named-group counts are roster-reconciled: SCI 1,308 vs its reported 1,495, Park Lawn 188 vs ~215, Carriage 132 vs 155 (gaps: cemetery-side directory pages and directory lag; verified combos are retained). Independent counts remain an observed scrape; no census pass was run outside Texas. Only SCI’s capture is roster-testable: the scrape held roughly 190 of its 1,308 tracked locations before reconciliation, which is why the CBP benchmark uses record counts alone. Shares are stated with direction: 85.4% independent is a floor and 14.6% consolidated a ceiling at the tracked groups’ observed footprints. Rosters covered 14 of the 20 groups (2,078 of 2,149 tracked chain locations); the remaining six are scrape-observed with higher company-reported totals (Fidelity 3 vs 40+ properties, Newcomer 30 vs 50+, Heritage 22 vs 110), but reported totals count cemeteries and combos (Everstory: 73 funeral homes of 460 properties), so the gap reaches one point (84.4% independent) only in the extreme case that every reported property is a distinct U.S. funeral home; on the Everstory pattern of roughly one funeral home per six reported properties the adjustment is a few tenths, and the unclosed CBP gap, overwhelmingly independent, runs the other way, so the at-least-85% reading holds on the dataset’s own arithmetic; verified watchlist footprints (largest: an 18-home group) remain classified independent inside the same bound. External estimates near 89% are context only and stay outside the calculation. Record counts are benchmarked against Census CBP 2023 (NAICS 812210; used as a count benchmark only): 14,680 records vs CBP’s 15,183 nationally (96.7%; 93.8% ex-Texas, which now exceeds its CBP count, 1,364 vs 982, since directories include non-employer homes), median state coverage 98%; NFDA and industry estimates put independent ownership near 89% of homes. State and metro shares divide tracked consolidated counts by classified totals; states below 70% of CBP coverage (MI, WI, MO, IA, AK) are flagged in the state table. Top-5 concentration inside the 2,149 tracked chain locations is exact on both sides and a ceiling on true concentration, since smaller groups are scrape-observed.
Roster reconciliation	Location rosters were harvested from company sources (2,143 roster rows: SCI’s complete 1,493-location consumer directory, Carriage’s and Park Lawn’s full directories, and brand and press sources for the rest), matched on domain and on name plus city and state, with collision-rejecting token rules. 466 records originally collected as independent targets were reassigned to their parent groups with per-row evidence (Carriage 96, Park Lawn 95, Everstory 50, Vertin 46, SCI 42, NorthStar 33, Newcomer 29, Milestone 21, and 54 across eight smaller groups); 17 candidate matches were rejected as name-collision false positives. The 1,450 roster locations the scrape had not captured were then added as records (SCI 1,120, Foundation Partners 103, Park Lawn 92, Carriage 35, and 100 across eight smaller groups), after cemetery filtering and de-duplication against every existing record.
Ownership verification framework	The 26 named institutional groups are classified from public sources as Verified (primary source), Reported (credible secondary), or Pending. 22 of 26 carry fully Verified or Reported status; a Pending element remains on Foundation Partners’ post-2025 investors, Anthem Partners’ sponsor (a Kensington attribution, unconfirmed), Gibraltar Remembrance’s footprint, and Legacy Funeral Group’s current count. Rows cross-checked August 31, 2026. Independent operators are anonymized throughout regardless of size (named groups are publicly identified acquirers; independents are potential targets); owner and contact information is maintained separately and never appears in the report.
Ownership reclassification	The supplied ownership vocabulary was remapped to the controlled vocabulary: 239 same-domain family-group rows with unverified sponsors were reclassified to Independent multi-location (a default erring toward independent; any later-verified sponsors sit inside the one-point bound above); SCI, Carriage Services, and Security National were moved to Public Strategic Chain; 25 records on the Altogether brand domain were reassigned from SCI to Foundation Partners Group after brand verification.
Operator grouping	Operators are derived from validated website-domain grouping with a name-and-city fallback; brand and roster domains map to their parent groups. The supplied location-count field (normalized name frequency, which merges unrelated operators) is retained as a legacy column, never used analytically.
Market groups	Assigned sequentially so each CBSA lands in exactly one group: Cremation-Forward Deep Pool (50+ classified independents and cremation-visible share at or above 50.0%), Traditional-Mix Deep Pool (50+ independents, share below 50.0%), Mid-Sized Independent (25 to 49), Smaller Observed (all others). Unrounded values are used at thresholds; boundary cases: Chicago (50.1%) in Group A, Virginia Beach (48.6%) and Detroit (48.3%) in Group B.
Operator segments	Four mutually exclusive segments assigned sequentially: multi-location operators (2+ observed sites), high-visibility singles (100+ reviews and 4.5+ rating), cremation-visible singles, deeper-research singles. Segments sum to the 11,585-location independent base.
Visible service signals	Cremation, grief support, memorial, online services, transport, and combo-property indicators reflect visible website and listing signals and do not establish confirmed service revenue mix; they overlap and are never summed as unique locations. Burial and pre-planning flags were collected but excluded as unreliable (observed at roughly 6% against near-universal real-world offerings); the sibling cremation flag is therefore detection-limited too: cremation-visible shares are floors, and metros within a few points of the 50.0% threshold are boundary cases. Crematory ownership (on-site vs trade) was not collected and is flagged as a diligence item.
Excluded supplied fields	Supplied composite scores and density-varying radii were excluded; transparent rules on stated denominators replace them.
Geography treatment	CBSA assignment uses a ZIP-to-CBSA crosswalk built on the 2018 CBSA delineation via ZCTA spatial join (the supplied metro key assigned 29.8% of records; superseded). Regions are the four Census regions, recomputed from state. Density tiers are the supplied ZIP-population proxy bands; the proxy’s lineage is unconfirmed and its values are binned, so density work is descriptive only. Distances are great-circle (straight-line) miles, never drive time.
External context	Industry size (IBISWorld, August 2026), funeral home counts and ownership (NFDA, September 2025), cremation rates (CANA May 2026; NFDA October 2025), costs (NFDA 2023 General Price List Study), deaths (CDC/NCHS 2024 final, January 2026), transaction multiples (The Foresight Companies, 2024), and owner retirement (2023 NFDA survey via Bisnow, February 2026) frame the market. External figures serve as separately stated benchmarks, never combined with proprietary counts in any share claim; the 2023 owner survey is read three years on, so part of the reported wave has already transacted.

Source dates. Proprietary tracked-location funeral home dataset: August 2026 (12,293 scrape records; roster reconciliation August 31, 2026). Named-group ownership: public sources as of August 31, 2026 (Named Ownership Appendix). External context: NFDA September and October 2025; CANA May 2026; IBISWorld August 2026; CDC/NCHS January 2026; Census CBP 2023, NAICS 812210 (coverage benchmark), retrieved August 2026.

Basis and limits. All rankings, market groups, operator segments, and signals are derived from the proprietary funeral home location dataset. Ownership classifications for the 26 named institutional groups are supported by cited public sources as of August 2026. Independent operators are anonymized and reported in aggregate. The analysis is not a complete legal-entity census and does not establish call volume, revenue mix, pre-need book size, operating performance, or transaction readiness. Recipients should apply independent judgment and conduct their own diligence.

Named Ownership Appendix

The Full Named Crosswalk: 20 Observed Groups and 6 Watchlist Buyers

Every named platform, chain, and consolidator with sponsor, observed footprint, public source, and verification status; roster-reconciled August 2026

Ownership Category Summary (2,149 tracked named-group records, roster-reconciled)

3 / 1,449

Public

Groups / observed records

9 / 469

PE / VC-Backed

Observed groups / records

8 / 231

Family / Private

Observed groups / records

Parent / Network	Sponsor / Owner	Category	Obs. Loc.	Source	Source Date	Status
Service Corporation International	Public, NYSE: SCI	Public	1,308	SCI IR	Jul 2026	Verified
Park Lawn (Viridian Holdings LP)	Homesteaders Life + Birch Hill Equity (Aug 2024); ~215 funeral homes	PE-Backed	188	Park Lawn PR	Mar 2026	Verified
Foundation Partners Group	Undisclosed investors, Aug 2025 (prior Access Holdings)	PE-Backed	136	FPG release	Aug 2025	Verified; sponsor Pending
Carriage Services	Public, NYSE: CSV	Public	132	Carriage PR	Aug 2026	Verified
Everstory Partners (fka StoneMor)	Axar Capital Management	PE-Backed	67	Everstory	Jun 2026	Verified
NorthStar Memorial Group (Smart Cremation)	Privately held	Family / Private	63	NSMG	Aug 2026	Verified
Vertin	Vertin family (Tom Vertin; est. 1904), Edina, MN	Family / Private	61	Vertin	Aug 2026	Verified
Milestone Funeral Partners	Rosewood Private Investments (Mar 2024); ~90 firms	PE-Backed	40	Rosewood	Feb 2026	Verified
Legacy Funeral Group	Michael Soper (founder, 1998)	Family / Private	39	Legacy FG	Apr 2025	Verified; count Pending
Newcomer Funeral Service Group	Newcomer family; 50+ locations, 10 states	Family / Private	30	Newcomer	Aug 2026	Verified
Heritage Family Management	Abry Partners (2020); 110 locations, 11 states; Elizabethton, TN	PE-Backed	22	Abry Partners	Aug 2026	Verified
Rollings Funeral Service	Greg Rollings + Vineyard Capital minority (Jan 2024)	Family / Private	18	Vineyard CP	Jan 2024	Verified
Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries	Forest Lawn Memorial-Park Association (nonprofit)	Family / Private	13	Forest Lawn	Aug 2026	Verified
Security National Financial (Memorial brands)	Public, NASDAQ: SNFCA	Public	9	SNFC	Aug 2026	Verified
After.com	After Services, Inc.; HIPstr (HighPost Capital)	VC-Backed	6	Business Wire	Jul 2024	Verified
Pinnacle Funeral Service	Private; Vineyard Capital-affiliated network	Family / Private	5	Pinnacle	Aug 2026	Reported
Anthem Partners	Undisclosed (Kensington attribution in two PE databases, unconfirmed)	PE-Backed	4	Dykema	Dec 2025	Pending (sponsor)
Earth Funeral	Earth Funeral PBC; Construct Capital, Alumni Ventures	VC-Backed	3	Alumni Ventures	Oct 2024	Verified
Fidelity Memorial Group	Saw Mill Capital (recap Oct 2025); Garden City, GA	PE-Backed	3	TM Capital	Oct 2025	Verified
Catholic Funeral & Cemetery Services	Nonprofit multi-diocese ministry, Oakland, CA	Family / Private (nonprofit)	2	CFCS	Aug 2026	Reported
Jersey Memorial Group	Hernandez family (founded 2009); 18 homes, NJ-PA-WV	Family / Private	0	Jersey Memorial	Aug 2026	Verified · Watchlist
Vineyard Capital Partners	PE umbrella behind Rollings (minority) and the Pinnacle-affiliated network; combined 130+ locations	PE-Backed (umbrella)	0	Vineyard CP	Jan 2024	Verified · Watchlist
Broylman Memorial Group (fka Legacy Memorial)	Founder-led (Micah Brown); 18 cemeteries + first funeral home (Russellville, AR, May 2026)	Founder Network	0	FuneralVision	May 2026	Verified · Watchlist
Big Sky Capital Partners	Family-office real estate; sale-leaseback buyer only; 10+ properties (2024)	Real Estate Acquirer	0	Bisnow	Feb 2026	Reported · Watchlist
Frary Funeral Home group	Frary family, upstate New York; sixth location Jan 2025	Family / Private	0	Funeral Director Daily	Jan 2025	Reported · Watchlist
Gibraltar Remembrance Services	Brammer family; current footprint unconfirmed	Family / Private	0	TWST	Aug 2009	Pending · Watchlist

Brand Aliases and Roster Homes Mapped to Parents in the Location Data

Dignity Memorial, Neptune Society, National Cremation, Trident Society, and Cremation Society of Pennsylvania map to Service Corporation International. Altogether, Afterall, Tulip Cremation, Solace Cremation, Baldwin Brothers, and Cremation Society of Minnesota map to Foundation Partners Group. Smart Cremation maps to NorthStar Memorial Group; StoneMor maps to Everstory Partners. Locally branded homes harvested from company rosters map to Everstory, Vertin, Newcomer, Milestone, Legacy Funeral Group, Rollings, Heritage, Pinnacle, Fidelity, and Anthem. Adjacent monitor: Batesville, the casket manufacturer (LongRange Capital since 2023), is the supply-side signal tracked for deathcare appetite; it owns no funeral home locations and carries no crosswalk row.

Status. Verified = primary source (sponsor, company, press release, or SEC filing); Reported = credible secondary source; Pending = not publicly confirmed. Rows cross-checked August 31, 2026. Watchlist buyers carry no observed footprint and are never counted in observed totals; Gibraltar is retained as a historical acquirer with no current public evidence. Counts are dataset location records, roster-reconciled for the largest groups (scrape plus roster-added, standalone cemeteries excluded); smaller-group counts are scrape-observed and can trail company-reported totals, which include cemeteries and combo properties. Company-reported totals for reference: SCI 1,495 funeral service locations (June 30, 2026), Foundation Partners 250+, Park Lawn ~215 funeral homes, Heritage 110, Milestone ~90, Everstory 460 properties (374 cemeteries, 73 funeral homes, 13 crematories).

Deep Dive Appendix

Supplementary Market and Data Indicators

Provider density, review visibility, density-tier coverage, and dataset completeness across the observed universe

These supplementary exhibits provide additional context on provider density, review coverage, density tiers, and dataset completeness. They support diligence; none changes the market-selection decisions in the main report.

Proximity by Density Tier (usable coordinates = 12,093)

Density Tier	Loc.	Closest (mi)	Other ≤10	None ≤10
Tier 1: Dense ZIP / urban	1,847	0.76	26	1.5%
Tier 2: Suburban	2,221	0.72	10	1.8%
Tier 3: Rural / low-density	8,025	1.55	3	14.8%

Median straight-line miles to the next observed record; median count of other records within 10 miles; share with none within 10 miles. Tier medians run close together in urban and suburban ZIPs and lengthen in rural tiers, where 14.8% of locations have no tracked neighbor within 10 miles.

Review Visibility (independents)

Median reviews per location	14
Locations with 100+ reviews	657 (5.7%)
Median rating	4.8
Without review data	517

Review volumes run far below consumer home services (medians in STOC’s pest control tracked dataset run roughly double), consistent with low-frequency, high-trust purchase behavior. Ratings cluster high: 70.4% of the 11,068 rated independents hold 4.5 or better and 32.8% hold a perfect 5.0, so rating alone separates little; the visibility screen therefore pairs a 4.5+ rating with 100+ reviews.

Density-Tier Coverage (all 12,284 scrape records; supplied ZIP-population proxy, lineage unconfirmed)

Tier 3: Rural / low-density

66.6%

Tier 2: Suburban

18.1%

Tier 1: Dense ZIP / urban

15.3%

8,181 Tier 3, 2,225 Tier 2, 1,878 Tier 1. Two-thirds of observed supply sits in rural and low-density ZIPs, where the deeper-research segment concentrates. Bars scaled to the largest tier.

Supply-Gap Screen

Higher-population ZIPs with limited observed supply are retained as diligence candidates in the supporting dataset. The ZIP-population proxy is binned and its lineage unconfirmed, and observed absence is never proof of market absence, so local validation is required before any market-level conclusion.

Universe Coverage

Of 14,680 records, 12,284 are proprietary-scrape (12,293 less 9 standalone cemeteries), 1,450 roster-added, and 946 Texas directory-census. Scrape records: 12,093 with usable coordinates and 11,753 with review data; after the state-consistency repair, 12,592 records are CBSA-assigned overall (840 CBSAs, metropolitan and micropolitan), including 935 of 1,450 roster-added and 719 of 946 directory-census records via city lookup. Roster-added records carry name, city, state, parent, and category only, and are excluded from coordinate, review, signal, and density exhibits. Each exhibit states the base it uses.

Source. STOC Advisory proprietary provider-density, review, and density-tier analysis, August 2026. Distances are great-circle (straight-line) miles. Supplied composite scores and variable-radius spatial fields were excluded from this report; see the Methodology appendix.