Friday 12 March 2010

The wages of solicitude

We worry about our football clubs. Many are encumbered by stonking debts. Manchester United owes £716 million.

What of our big undertaking businesses? Well, Dignity Caring Funeral Services has just published figures which provide the current answer to that question. And the answer is (sit down, please, and clutch your whisky) that Dignity are leveraged to the tune of £250 million.

Bad news: in 2009 they performed 3,700 fewer funerals than in 2008.

Good news: profits rose 6 per cent to £37.5 million.

Bad news: price per funeral rose by 6 per cent.

Good news: shareholder payouts are up by 10 per cent.

Conclusion: caring for investors, crapping on consumers.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Jonathan said...

Funeral price up 6%
Profit up 6%

Works for same number of funerals, but 3,700 fewer funerals can only mean one of three things:

Crematorium price rises, or
Creative accountancy, or
Staff redundancy

Conclusion: crapping on more than just consumers.

13 March 2010 at 15:06  

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