THE GOAL OF HERITAGE

Our goal is to build a profitable and private funeral company over the next several years.   Many other companies have started acquisition programs with the idea that they would consolidate just enough to either go public or sell to a big public company.   Our goal is to start private and stay private.  We are being careful to structure our company and our acquisition strategy to avoid the pitfalls of being forced into selling or going public.  

SHAREHOLDERS OF HERITAGE

The shareholders of Heritage are carefully chosen to be long-term investors. Some will hopefully be retired owners, existing management or employees. The balance will be shareholders with the expectation of long-term dividend type returns.  There is no expectation of a near-term sale of the company or other short-term capital-gain-type motivations.

SIZE OF BUSINESS AND CONTINUITY OF PEOPLE AND PHILOSOPHY

We are seeking funeral companies in solid communities where the business is strong enough to support a local management group.  When an owner is retiring, it is important to us that there are people already working for the business who are well known in the community, great at funeral service and willing to provide the local management that the firm will need into the future.  We have the resources to help train those people if they have not had sufficient management experience, but we do not have the desire to parachute in new people or to otherwise make dramatic changes to the provision of funeral service in any community we are fortunate to become involved in.   

STRUCTURE OF A TRANSACTION

We understand that when an owner wishes to retire, that owner does not want to self-fund a sale of their business, e.g. to a group of employees.  Self-funded transactions often result in the ex-owner watching over the business as much as ever to protect the payment plan that was agreed to.  We structure our offers to provide the owner with "real" retirement, which to us means the owner must receive a large portion of the proceeds in cash.  

It is also important to us that there continue to be local ownership in the funeral operation. We believe that is good for both the business the community. Based on this premise, we appreciate some amount of ownership from the retiring owner(s) as well as from the post-transaction management and staff.  Local ownership is not required, but it is encouraged.  If our company is going to remain private, who better to own part of the company than the people who work there? In fact, one of our special strategies will allow local management to "re-purchase" most or all of the funeral business in the future if that is their desire.

Finally, we want to invest in not only the funeral home, but also in the management and staff. For that reason we ask that the management and staff agree not to compete with us in the future and that often amounts to a small "bonus" for each of them as the transaction takes place.