
Image Source: Mike Mozart
Structure of the Personal Services Industry
The personal services industry is composed of a variety of firms, including those catering to man’s inescapable certainties: death and taxes. The funeral home/cemetery industry is charaterized by a large number of local-owned, independent operators, and pricing competition is intense. Death service firms sell fixed-price pre-need funeral contracts, which add uncertainty to operations if future costs are higher than expected. Tax service firms face price competition from independent tax preparers and CPAs, and initiatives to simplify tax-return preparations could hurt future performance. We’re neutral on the group.
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