Australia’s largest online consumer advocate and funeral planning platform, eziFunerals, holds grave concerns for grieving families as public listed company, InvoCare, acquires another community and family owned funeral home.
InvoCare has recently announced that it has entered into another sales agreement to acquire the business and assets of Archer & Sons Funeral Homes based in the south west region of Western Australia.
This announcement is on top of InvoCare’s recent acquisitions of other family owned funeral homes across Australia and New Zealand in the past year:
- English Rose with $0.7 million of revenue
- Lester & Son with $3.5 million of revenue
- Hope & Sons with NZ$5.8 million of revenue
- Whitestone with NZ$1 million of revenue
- Southern Highlands with $0.7 million of revenue
- J A Dunn with $1 million of revenue
- And now Archer & Sons with $2.4 million
‘Australia’s biggest undertakers just keep getting bigger. But is their growth coming at the expense of grieving families?’
Peter Erceg, Founder of eziFunerals said “These latest acquisitions by InvoCare may be good news for shareholders, but not for grieving families”.
“InvoCare are reporting higher and higher profits as they continue to increase their footprint and buy out small operators to increase their market share, at the expense of consumers”, he said.
While large providers such as InvoCare can exploit economies of scale for support activities or vertically integrate, the price of an InvoCare funeral is more expensive than other independent funeral homes on average.”
Peter Erceg said “unless consumers know who owns their local funeral home and shop around, they will continue to hit with rising costs and a lack of choice. This is not in the interests of grieving families and family owned funeral homes.”
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About eziFunerals
eziFunerals is a free consumer advocacy and funeral planning platform that supports individuals and families cope with end of life decisions, death and funerals. We are an independent, Australian-owned and operated company, and are not a subsidiary of any other corporation. We are not part of any other funeral company. Founded by consumers frustrated by how difficult it was to get independent information, eziFunerals supports consumers plan a funeral, compare prices and select the right funeral director anywhere, anytime.