Donohue teams with StoneMor at Catholic cemeteries
The Donohue Funeral Home announced Wednesday that it is partnering with burial industry giant StoneMor Partners L.P. to provide funeral services for its Archdiocese of Philadelphia customers.
“The way it is right now, any family can go out to the cemetery, they can preplan their burial, preplan their casket, preplan their burial vault,” said Donohue President Mike Donohue. “However, they cannot preplan the service. This gives everyone the opportunity to facilitate all of their needs.”
Trevose-based StoneMor, the second-largest provider of funeral and cemetery products and services in the death care industry, took over management of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s 13 cemeteries in May 2014 under a 35year agreement designed to help defray the archdiocese’s unfunded liabilities.
The announced partnership with Donohue comes just one day after StoneMor founder and Chief Executive Officer Lawrence Miller announced that he would retire in August. Miller indicated he would stay on as an advisor and vice chairman of the StoneMor General Partners Board following his retirement.
“The Donohue family has served their community for five generations with integrity and care,” stated Miller in a release Wednesday. “Families deserve peace of mind in their most difficult hours. We look forward to helping simplify the process.”
Stonemor Partners LP is facing a consolidated shareholder lawsuit and a separate derivative lawsuit on behalf of the company in Philadelphia federal court. Miller and other StoneMor board members and executives are named defendants in the suits, which claim StoneMor engaged in a Ponzi-like scheme to pay old investors with money from new stock offerings. The alleged scheme ultimately resulted in a 45-percent stock price drop late last year, according to the complaints, from which StoneMor stock has yet to recover.
Donohue said Wednesday that he is not concerned with or involved in the lawsuit and does not believe StoneMor is going away any time soon. He conceded that StoneMor had been “an issue” since entering the market a few years ago, but added that he has heard from satisfied customers that dealt with the company.
Donohue said his business has been working on this deal with StoneMor for nine months to a year and had no idea the timing of the partnership announcement would coincide with Miller’s departure announcement.
He said the agreement essentially calls for StoneMor to recommend Donohue to anyone making burial arrangements at archdiocesan cemeteries, while StoneMor will act as the holding company for any third-party insurance involved in preplanning arrangements at the funeral home.