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It was announced in this press release that Foundation Partners Group, the Orlando, Florida, based funeral home and cemetery consolidator and operator, has acquired Kraft Sussman Funeral & Cremation Services of Las Vegas, Nevada. The press release notes that this is Foundation Partners Group’s (FPG) first acquisition in Nevada. . . .the state with America’s highest cremation percentage rate.
Tom Kominsky, CFO of Foundation Partners Group, said this of the acquisition, “Kraft Sussman is ahead of the curve in a number of areas. They recognized early on that consumer preferences have been shifting toward cremation and, like Foundation Partners, they have embraced this change.”
Nevada was the first state to reach a cremation percentage rate of 80% and in the latest review of cremation rates sits at 80.7% of all deaths being cremated.
Funeral Director Daily take: I don’t comment on every acquisition that we report on. However, I think the Kraft-Sussman acquisition can be a very strategic acquisition for Foundation Partners Group. I’ve watched the growth of Kraft Sussman since their inception and believe they really understand the consumer.
First of all, the business was founded by female owners Wendy Kraft and Laura Sussman who didn’t have family funeral home backgrounds when deciding to open this business. In other words, I think they have a unique perspective on the funeral home or cremation consumer and have responded with that intuition to their market.
Kraft-Sussman has invested in, and offers, what they term Aquamation to their client families. I believe that they are the first, and maybe the only alkaline hydrolysis operator in Las Vegas. If so, that gives them some growth opportunities and, according to their website, they are the only Las Vegas members of the Green Burial Council. That may also give them some growth opportunities in a very fast and mobile growing cosmopolitan market.
I believe that their brand can be a growth juggernaut in their market, especially if Foundation Partners Group is willing to open the marketing spigot to tell potential clientele about the operation.
Here is the Kraft-Sussman Funeral Home & Cremation website.
