Service Corporation International
NYSE:SCI
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Service Corporation International
Earnings Call Analysis
Q3-2024 Analysis
Service Corporation International
For the third quarter of 2024, the company reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.79, up from $0.78 a year prior. This growth was supported by a strategic reduction in share count and a favorable tax rate, despite rising general and administrative costs and increased interest expenses. The company made significant investments totaling $123 million for acquiring 10 funeral homes and two cemeteries in growing metropolitan markets, along with $31 million for expanding existing facilities.
Total comparable funeral revenues edged up by $7 million or approximately 1%. Core funeral revenue, which grew by 2%, accounted for $4 million of this increase, compensating for a slight decrease in funeral volumes by 1%. Notably, the average cremation rate also increased by 30 basis points. However, gross profits in the funeral segment dipped by about $2 million, leading to a gross profit percentage decline of 50 basis points, attributed to inflation in fixed costs outpacing revenue growth.
Cemetery revenues remained flat year-over-year. Contributing factors included a $5 million increase in other revenues counterbalanced by a $5 million drop in core revenue. Recognized preneed merchandise revenue saw a $10 million rise, but this was overshadowed by an $11 million decline in recognized preneed property revenue. The gross profit percentage for the cemetery segment slightly improved by 10 basis points, indicating better management of fixed costs.
Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of 2024, the company forecasts adjusted EPS in the range of $1.00 to $1.10, signifying an 8% to 18% growth compared to $0.93 in the same quarter last year. For 2025, the company anticipates returning to historical EPS growth rates of 8% to 12%, primarily driven by stable funeral volumes and a recovery in preneed cemetery sales, projected to achieve low to mid-single-digit growth.
The company's adjusted operating cash flow reached $269 million, an increase of over $41 million or 18% year-on-year, bolstered by favorable working capital and higher customer cash receipts from preneed cemetery sales. This robust cash flow led the company to raise its 2024 cash flow guidance to $940 million to $960 million, with expectations of $230 million to $250 million in the fourth quarter alone.
In total, capital investments for the quarter amounted to $320 million, the highest for 2024, which included $88 million for maintenance capital and $13 million for growth capital aimed at expanding funeral homes. Additionally, the company returned $65 million in capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Year-to-date, about $353 million has been returned, reflecting a commitment to shareholder value.
The company remains optimistic about its acquisition pipeline. With investments at $162 million for 2024, it aims for continued strategic growth in key markets. Management expects this will contribute positively to earnings, enhancing already solid revenue streams while also maintaining focus on operational stability during periods of transition.
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Good day, and welcome to SCI's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to SCI management. Please go ahead.
Good morning. This is Allie O'Connor, AVP of Investor Relations and Financial Reporting. Welcome to our third quarter earnings call. We will have prepared remarks about the quarter from Tom and Eric in just a moment. But before that, let me quickly go over to the safe harbor language.
Any comments made by our management team that state our plans, beliefs, expectations or projections for the future are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results differ materially from those contemplated in such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors identified in our earnings release and in our filings with the SEC that are available on our website.
Today, we might also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures can be found in the tables at the end of our earnings release and on our website.
With that out of the way, I will now turn it over to Tom Ryan, Chairman and CEO.
Thanks, Allie. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. This morning, I'm going to begin my remarks with some high-level color on our business performance for the quarter, then provide some greater detail around our funeral and cemetery results. I will then close with some thoughts regarding our earnings expectations for the rest of 2024 and preliminary thoughts about 2025.
For the third quarter, we generated adjusted earnings per share of $0.79, which compared to $0.78 in the prior year. Gross profit from both the funeral and cemetery segments was relatively stable. Below the line, the favorable impact of a lower share count and a lower tax rate was nearly offset by increased corporate general and administrative expense caused by changes in our total shareholder return and its corresponding effect on our long-term incentive compensation plan as well as increased interest expense resulting in a net $0.01 increase in earnings per share.
We also had a very active quarter on the business acquisition front. We invested $123 million during the quarter into top-tier businesses in growing major metropolitan markets adding 10 funeral homes and 2 cemeteries. We are excited to welcome our new teammates into the SCI family.
We also invested an additional $31 million in real estate transactions for the expansion of our footprint of funeral homes and cemeteries in our existing markets.
Now let's take a deeper look into the funeral results for the quarter. Total comparable funeral revenues increased $7 million or about 1% over the prior year quarter. Comparable core funeral revenue provided $4 million of the $7 million revenue increase, as core average grew by 2%, absorbing a 30 basis point increase in the core cremation rate. This growth was attained even with the core funeral volume decline of 1%, which was better than we had expected for the quarter.
SCI Direct, non-funeral home preneed sales revenue decreased by $5 million, primarily due to a decline in sales production, as we transition from trust to insurance-funded contracts and by the effect of operational changes in certain markets with respect to the timing of merchandise deliveries.
Core General Agency and other revenue grew $8 million primarily due to growth in General Agency revenue driven by higher average commission rates, resulting from our new preneed insurance marketing agreement as well as the effect of selling a heavier mix of underwritten insurance products, which carry higher commission rates versus a flex or non-underwritten product.
Funeral gross profit declined slightly by about $2 million, while the gross profit percentage declined 50 basis points to just over 19%. This decrease was in line with our expectations as inflationary increases in our fixed costs slightly outpaced our 1% revenue growth.
Preneed funeral sales production decreased by $22 million or about 7% over the third quarter of 2023. Core preneed funeral sales production decreased by $14 million or 6%, primarily due to the transition to our new preneed insurance provider during the quarter. We anticipate comparable core preneed sales production to normalize over the coming months.
Nonfuneral home preneed sales production decreased $8 million or 10% as SCI Direct transitions from trust to insurance-funded contracts. This transition required many of our sales counselors to obtain insurance licenses, which caused a temporary slowdown in sales, but this too should stabilize and grow again in the coming quarters.
Now shifting to cemetery. Comparable cemetery revenue was flat as compared to the prior year quarter as a $5 million increase in other revenue was offset by a $5 million decrease in core revenue. The $5 million decline in core revenue was primarily the result of a $4 million decline in atneed revenue combined with a $1 million decline in total recognized preneed growth.
Breaking the components of recognized preneed revenue apart, recognized preneed merchandise and service revenue growth of $10 million from higher-quality contract sales averages being delivered out of the backlog was offset by a decline of $11 million in recognized preneed property revenue.
Other revenue grew by $5 million compared to the prior year quarter, primarily from an increase in endowment care trust fund income as we continue to expand our total return investment strategy through successful industry and legislative efforts. Comparable preneed sales production decreased by $8 million or about 3%, primarily due to a decline in large sales, while our core production was relatively flat.
For each of the last 3 quarters, we've generated around $40 million in large sales. Prior to 2023, we had only achieved this milestone once in our history. Last year, we averaged about $48 million per quarter in the second, third and fourth quarters. In the face of these very challenging comparisons, our sales results remain very strong.
At our largest location, Rose Hills, our customer access to some of our new premium sections has been limited this year due to ongoing development activities. We anticipate we will return to low to mid-single-digit growth in 2025 and we continue to see long-term strength in our premium cemetery inventory and sales production.
Cemetery gross profits in the quarter increased by $1 million and the gross profit percentage increased by 10 basis points, generating an operating margin of 32%. While revenues were flat, growth in higher margin trust fund income and managing our fixed cost expense growth below 3%, allowed us to grow gross profits modestly.
Now let's shift to discussion about our outlook for the remainder of 2024. Our current outlook for the fourth quarter of 2024 for adjusted earnings per share is $1 to $1.10, representing expected growth of 8% to 18% compared to $0.93 of adjusted earnings per share in the fourth quarter of 2023.
We expect to grow both comparable funeral and cemetery margins in the fourth quarter, primarily from the impact of higher general agency revenues from our new preneed marketing agreement on the funeral side, then on the cemetery segment from the favorable impact stemming from the servicing of our merchandise and service preneed backlog, coupled with Endowment Care Fund trust income. Increased profits from recent acquisitions and lower corporate general and administrative costs will be somewhat offset by higher tax rate.
As we think about 2025, we are optimistic that we can return to earnings per share growth towards the higher end of our historical annual guidance of 8% to 12%. We anticipate funeral volumes to stabilize as compared to 2024 levels and preneed cemetery sales production to return to low to mid-single-digit percentage growth. We are highly confident we can grow General Agency revenues impressively, with our new preneed insurance marketing agreement.
The negative effects of comparably higher interest rates and lower SCI Direct profits from operational changes in 2024, should true positive in 2025. And finally, the contributions from the fantastic class of acquisitions in 2024 to provide another positive trend for 2025.
Beyond that is where I truly feel excited with our vast North American network containing market-leading brands and businesses, a world-class workforce and a robust $16 billion preneed backlog. We are poised to capture incremental value for our shareholders as future demographic trends have a very positive impact on our industry.
In conclusion, I want to acknowledge and thank the entire SCI team for their daily commitment to our customers, our communities and one another. Your dedication is the foundation of our success. Thank you for making a difference every day.
With that, operator, I'll now turn the call over to Eric.
Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to kind of start the way Tom just ended. So before we get too much into the financial prepared remarks, I want to address all of our associates tuning in this morning and I want to express my sincere gratitude to you and your unwavering dedication to our communities as well as the client families that you serve, let's face it during their most challenging times. What you are doing is truly amazing. And whether your are on that family-facing frontline or on a home office support role, your commitment and hard work truly make a difference and are deeply appreciated by all of us in senior management. So thank you for everything that you do.
So with that, I'm going to start the prepared remarks by discussing our cash flow results and then move into capital investments during the quarter. I'll then make a few comments on corporate G&A expense and our current financial position before concluding with some updates on some guidance, specifically related to cash flow.
So during the quarter, our adjusted cash flow remained strong as we reported adjusted operating cash flow of $269 million. This exceeded our expectations internally and is an increase of more than $41 million or 18% over the prior year. The primary drivers for the strong cash flow growth were favorable working capital sources of $54 million in the quarter. This continued to benefit from higher customer cash receipts derived mainly from previous preneed cemetery installment sales.
So over the last couple of years, we've seen a significant increase in our preneed cemetery sales, particularly during COVID. We generally finance these sales over a 4- to 5-year period and continue to see the benefits of the strong installment cash receipts as a result.
These higher working capital sources were partially offset by our lower adjusted operating income of about $12 million during the quarter and higher cash interest of about $6 million, which is primarily related to the higher debt balances. Cash taxes in the quarter were flat year-over-year, and as we've discussed several times now over the past several quarters, this year has benefited from a tax accounting method change related to the timing of recognition of cemetery property revenue.
Looking forward beyond 2024, we expect cash taxes to revert to a more normalized level, which will result in an anticipated increase of about $150 million in annual cash tax payments in 2025 compared to 2024, and then we'll continue at that more normalized level in the years beyond that.
So let's talk about the capital investment during the quarter. We are very excited about the investments that we made during this particular quarter. We invested a combined $320 million of capital, which is allocated back into our existing businesses, purchased or constructed new businesses and returned capital to our shareholders. This is the highest quarterly investment rate for 2024 and $40 million higher than our prior year quarter. Specifically, we invested $88 million into maintenance capital in the quarter, which was slightly higher than our expectations due to some timing of some projects.
So let's break that down a little further. We deployed $44 million to high-yielding cemetery inventory development projects. And again, that supports future preneed cemetery sales growth, 37% of maintenance capital to maintain our current best-in-class facilities and $7 million into digital investments and corporate initiatives. Additionally, we also invested $13 million in growth capital to expand some of our existing funeral homes and construct some new funeral homes as well.
Now let's talk about the acquisitions, which was a particular highlight for us during the quarter. As Tom has already mentioned, we successfully closed on several significant businesses in major markets for a total of $123 million of spend. This brings our 2024 investment on acquisitions to $162 million, which significantly exceeds our typical range of $75 million to $125 million on an annual basis. We are happy to welcome all of these new associates from these acquisitions to the SCI family.
In addition to acquiring these businesses, we also spent $31 million purchased in real estate in California, Florida and Texas, some of our largest states, as you know, for future development of cemeteries and funeral homes.
Lastly, in terms of capital return to shareholders, we returned nearly $65 million of capital to shareholders in the quarter, and this is through $44 million of dividends and $21 million of share repurchases.
So let's talk about those repurchases for a second. Year-to-date, we purchased about 2.7 million shares at an average price of just around $71, resulting in just under 145 million shares outstanding as of the end of the quarter. Subsequent to the quarter, we've also repurchased another $25 million in shares, bringing the total year-to-date capital return to shareholders to $353 million, about a little over $130 million in dividends and a little over $220 million of share repurchases.
So now let's shift to corporate G&A, where we incurred $44 million in the quarter, which is a little bit higher than our $38 million to $40 million that we expected as the normally quarterly range of 2024. The increase was primarily due to higher long-term incentive compensation on plans that were supported by growth in total shareholder return or TSR during the quarter. We remain comfortable with the fourth quarter range in '24 of $38 million to $40 million for normal corporate G&A expense.
So I'd like to share a few updates also on our solid financial position. And in September, just to remind you, we issued an 8-year $800 million note at a 5.75% rate, which we used to repay about $780 million of our long-term bank credit facility. This transaction was immediately accretive as we effectively swapped 7.4% debt for 5.75% debt which calculates to about a $11 million to $12 million savings on an annual basis. Additionally, this transaction also meaningfully increased our liquidity because it freed up availability on this long-term bank credit facility.
At the end of the quarter, we had liquidity of about $1.5 billion, made up of $185 million of cash on hand, plus about $1.3 billion now available on this long-term bank credit facility. Our leverage at the end of the quarter increased slightly to 3.78x on a net debt-to-EBITDA basis, putting us near the midpoint of our 3.5 to 4x targeted range.
Now let's shift a little bit to going forward and cash flow guidance. Cash flows remained strong, driven by better-than-expected cash flows from preneed cemetery installment receipts as well as a somewhat lower cash taxes. As a result, as you saw, we're raising the midpoint of our 2024 adjusted cash flow from operation guidance range from a midpoint of $930 million to $950 million. This resulted in a 2024 range of $940 million to $960 million and specifically, a range of $230 million to $250 million for the fourth quarter. Also, our expectation for total maintenance CapEx guidance remains unchanged for the full year of '24 at about $325 million.
So looking beyond '24, I'd now like to give you some high-level color on our 2025 cash flow expectations. To neutralize cash taxes for a second and talk before cash taxes, our cash flow in '25 should be positively impacted by our expected earnings growth that Tom just discussed as well as expect to continued strength in this preneed installment cash receipts.
From a CapEx perspective, while we're initially expecting the capital to maintain our field locations and cemetery development spend to be slightly higher than '24 levels. We expect continued moderation in our digital investments and corporate initiatives headed into next year, which really results in our overall maintenance capital will be generally flat in '25 to '24 levels.
So in closing, our cash flow remains a key strength of our company, and combined with our strong balance sheet, should allow us to maintain the financial flexibility to keep providing value to our shareholders. I want to once again thank our entire SCI team for their invaluable contributions each and every day.
So with that, operator, this wraps up our prepared remarks. And now we'll pass it back to you and open the floor up to questions.
[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Scott Schneeberger with Oppenheimer.
I'd like to start out the discussion cemetery preneed sales. Just want to get a sense for maybe recognized revenue here into the end of the year and into 2025 and more so in 2025. Thinking about where -- based on what you're seeing ending '24, what type of levels you think would be reasonable with any commentary about why are sales appreciated as well?
Scott, so as you think about the fourth quarter, again, we've got a really tough comparison, particularly in the -- when you think about large sales, I think it was around $48 million. So that's a big one to overcome when you think about production. On the recognition front, last year, we had a pretty big influx, and this is typically seasonal in the fourth quarter of recognized projects that get completed. And I think this year will be slightly below last year, but in line with that. And so a lot bigger than the third quarter, but when you compare back to the fourth quarter, it's pretty comparable, slightly below.
As you think about '25, I think from a sales production and recognition basis, we feel pretty confident, again, that we can get back to traditional growth levels. And again, I know that's been -- it's been a long time, but we kind of model that in the low to mid-single-digit percentage range. I do think we know that the COVID epidemic had an impact on funeral volumes. Funeral volumes are lead sources for cemetery. And so we kind of feel like '25 in the year, volumes stabilize, and we believe preneed sales stabilize and get back to traditional growth levels.
And Tom, just on large sales, I heard you mentioned Rose Hills has some ongoing construction that may prohibit timing on that. Does that play into what we saw in the quarter? Or was it purely just year-over-year comps being so challenging?
Yes. If you look at, for instance, just take Ross Hills, I mean, to show you how significant it is. Traditionally, large sales last year probably ran $9 million, $10 million in the quarter. They're running $5 million a quarter right now. So that's a pretty big delta, and that's solely based upon we're not finished with the section and have the ability to take customers up there and see it. But that will be open in 2025 as an example. So I'd expect Rose Hills to be a growth opportunity when you think about large sales for next year.
I appreciate that. And then just on the funeral side, and I'll turn it over. What gives confidence for flattish volume growth in '25 as perhaps another year of reversion post the pandemic pull forward? Just want to get a sense of what you're seeing there and tying in that funeral preneed was a little weaker than we expected in the quarter? Just some thoughts on what the kind of run rate should be on that going forward in the status quo?
Sure. So on funeral volumes, I think it's just -- we've had these models that we've -- again, it's a bit of a guess. But we anticipate that there's still pull-forward effects but again, we think the markets are growing. We think we're beginning to see increases in death as it relates to the demographics of the population. So our models just show it flattening out in 2025 and then getting it into slight gross post that. And again, that could be off a little bit one way or the other, but we're pretty confident that it's going to be somewhere near that.
On preneed funeral, I would expect that, that is going to get a lot better. I mean we talked a little bit about it. There's so much change going on for both core sales and SCI Direct sales. So on the core side, one, we're transitioning to a new contract, a new provider. And two, I think we talked about a little bit before, we were uncomfortable with the fact that we sold a lot of what we call Flex Product, which didn't give our customers protection during the payment cycle.
So we've spent a lot of time with our new partner saying how do we onboard more people into an underwritten insurance product, which gives them that protection. And so that has caused a little bit of a hiccup as you think about people before that have a hard time getting underwritten for a variety of reasons, health and others. It's just a complicated process. We think that's starting to stabilize. And so when I think about '25, I think we're going to get back to traditional levels of growth when you think about the core product.
SCI Direct is a little bit different in that not only are we -- we're transitioning from a trust product to an insurance product. And so there, if you think about it, to sell an insurance product you need to be licensed. So we have quite a few sales counselors that needed to obtain that license. So that may take a little bit longer, I'd say, to stabilize and grow. But I'd expect in the back half of 2025, that's back to growing at pretty traditional growth levels. So that's the reason it's kind of really no other -- I think people want to be protected, and we're going to provide a great insurance product, a better insurance product than we had before/.
Our next question comes from Tobey Sommer with Truist.
I was hoping you could dig into this new insurance relationships? And maybe given like you said some of the changes in selling and products and organization, maybe talk about the lower efficiency that you might have had here near term? And what kind of delta you could have in the sales force as you go into next year and things are a little bit more settled, so to speak?
Yes. I think, Tobey, like we said, if you look back historically, if you take cemetery, we grow in the low to mid-single digits. I think core funeral, we'd expect to be able to get back to that low to mid-single-digit and when you look at SCI Direct because of the way it sells, and traditionally, it's probably more like a mid-single to potentially high single-digit type of growth production. And again, I think those are going to phase in at different times. I would expect SCI Direct to take a little more time because of the whole licensing complication.
But all of this, like I said, we chose to take this pause, if you will, and we -- if you think about SCI Direct, we're losing somewhere close to what like $11 million, $12 million of profitability historically by having some of these changes. The good news is we're really setting ourselves up for some tremendous growth. When you think about SCI Direct, we're going to be deferring. We delivered merchandise before we're not going to deliver it anymore once we're done. So a contract out of the backlog of SCI Direct preneed going atneed might have been $1,200. It's going to be -- it's going to grow to $2,500, $3,000. You're going to begin to see these contracts flow through funeral operations and have a natural growth pattern because we have such a tremendous backlog.
So again, it's temporary. I think from a sales production perspective, back to those low to mid-single digit on the core side and mid- to high when you think about SCI Direct functioning on all [indiscernible].
The acquisitions were pretty sizable in the quarter. Does the pipeline remains strong? And are you -- in the post-COVID period, are you seeing mom-and-pops sort of more willing to sell? Do you have an expectation that the strength to continue?
Yes, Toby, this is Eric. I think we continue to be excited about the pipeline in the industry. I think every sellers decision is a little bit different, and I don't think I can kind of generalize it to just talk about COVID. But I think there's a good healthy pipeline of the type of independence and acquisition opportunities that we'd be very interested in. A lot of that is major metropolitan areas. It's larger combination facilities. Those types of things are what we're excited about. That's what we were able to close on during this particular quarter. Those deals have been in the pipeline for a while and we're very glad to have them, but there's more to come.
I think the official guidance is going back to the $75 million to $125 million spend next year, like I said in the remarks, but we certainly hope to be at the high end or even exceed it next year like we did this year, but it ebbs and flows. And a lot of that is the seller's decision, not necessarily our decision or when we want to do it. But when the cell does raise the hand and ready for a liquidity event, as you could tell, we have a significant amount, $1.5 billion of liquidity that we're able to move very quickly, very fast in a favorable environment.
Next question comes from Joanna Gajuk with Bank of America.
Maybe first, just a clarification on the comment on the funeral loans next year to be flattish. That's organic, isn't it?
Yes. That's same-store organic.
Right exactly because we're just talking about all these acquisitions, so I just want to clarify that. I guess 2 other questions. So -- when you talk about switching to cemetery, you talk about this large preneed sales had tough comp and I guess the [indiscernible] some limitations there. Can you talk about these large sales compared to 2019? So I understand last year was very active. And also when thinking about these large sales, are those delayed? Is there any indications that these clients might come back in Q4?
Yes. So if you go back to '19, my memory serves me, it's -- we're probably around $100 million annually in large sale production. And now we're running at a rate of closer to $160 million, $170 million. So when you think about pre-COVID, we've had 60%, 70% type of growth. And that's why I tried to say in the comments, even though we're down year-over-year and we can get down on ourselves, we're really operating at a very high rate.
Now a lot of that's because we've taken the concept of these beautiful high-end garden in the states. And we put that in different parts of the country. We've got a great team in developing that inventory, pricing that inventory, training. So we've been able to expand the places that do it.
Now Rose Hill, I go back to you, it's probably 25% of our high-end production every year. So that's why I may say, why don't we bring it up because it's big. And if it's down, it's hard to overcome. It's a good problem to have, take it every week. So -- so that's -- we're operating at today, again, at a very high level, and I'd expect those type of levels to continue, Joanna, as we look forward. We're seeing deals out there. So there's nothing that we believe is going to impede at this time, our ability to execute that. Just a tough [indiscernible] for second and third quarter and have another tough one, by the way, in the fourth quarter. But beyond that, we feel really good.
Okay. That's good color. And I guess on P&O margins, right, the improvement from Q2, especially, and this 19% in this quarter is much better than, call it, '16 and 2019 in the third quarter because that tends to be lower. So is this, I guess, a new runway? And I guess is this already benefiting from this new insurance contract? Or how should we think about kind of full year funeral margins considering the benefits of the senior insurance contract?
Yes. I mean a lot of the improvements that you're referring to back to '19 is really from the core business and from SCI Direct. It really has nothing to do with just pure latency. We're seeing a little bit of that in the quarter helping us, but we anticipate it will be a much bigger factor to the positive when you think about funeral margins in 2025. So we'd anticipate our margins to go up again, maybe 100 to 150 basis points is a fair way to think about if we execute the way that we think we can in '25.
Great. If I may squeeze a last one funeral cremation shift, why it was only 40 bps? That's the fourth consecutive quarter of that should be below what you had been describing previously being like a trend of 100 to 150. So is that enough to call it a new trend? Or then are we kind of in the new paradigm maybe that shift headwind a [indiscernible]?
We debate that internally all the time. I think my personal opinion is, it does ebb and flow. I still -- I'm not sure maybe 150 basis points that we used to say is not in the reality realm anymore. But I still think it could be 100 basis points a year. Some of that -- that's just the fact that we have so much cremation now in order to move the needle, it takes quite a bit. It's just a large base of business.
Our next question comes from A.J. Rice with UBS.
A couple of questions, if I could. So the anticipation that volumes might start to trend a little more positive. Obviously, we've been through a period of time where the forecast has been flat to down on atneed volumes. Any -- what would you say is underpinning your thoughts that we'll start to see that turn more positive?
I think it's a combination of things, A.J. But first and foremost is, I just think the pull-forward effect lessens every year as we model that out, that it's going to get smaller and smaller as we go forward. And then the second thing is, again, the population has grown, demographics are shifting in that direction. We feel like we're competing pretty aggressively in our markets. We've got a great preneed backlog. So all these things kind of roll into our thinking.
But the biggest one probably of that is that the pull-forward effect just continues to diminish as we model it out. Now it doesn't go away, but we overcome it with the other things that I mentioned.
And just to think about -- I haven't asked you about this in a while, but with some of the volatility in volumes this year. And also, frankly, on the cemetery production side, when you think about that pull-forward dynamic, the lingering effects of COVID, either in how it might affect the demand for preneed cemetery property sales or in the atneed funeral side, have you changed your thinking? What's the updated thinking versus what you guys laid out at your Investor Day a couple of years ago about the pull forward effect and where we're at in all of that?
No, I think it's kind of trending the way we think. I think when you have a little less volume on the funeral side, we anticipate a little less lease when you think about kind of the core funeral sale. It shouldn't impact large sales quite honestly but more along the lines of the core business. You just have less lead to follow up on. I think the correlation is like 53%, 54%, and that's been true for really the last 10 years. So there's definitely that. So that's why we feel -- if we say volume is going to flatten out, that makes us feel better about cemetery sales production, particularly as it relates to good leads that we get through our atneed business.
Okay. Great. And then on the acquisitions, the step-up in pace there, it sounds like maybe some of these transactions are in markets where you already have a presence, which will presumably make them potentially even more accretive than just an outright purchase. Is that true? Can you talk about pricing ability to contribute? Is that part of your comfort with expressing a return to sort of the high end of the growth targets, what you've seen on acquisitions more recently?
The growth target itself, acquisitions will be a piece to that. And obviously, when you're able to spend money that's well above $160 million, $170 million, not sure what we will close before year-end. So it could be a little bit higher, A.J., versus the target of roughly midpoint of $100 million, that's going to have a nice accretive perspective in these deals. You can assume and we're precluded in some of these contracts to talk too much about it right now in terms of it. But you can assume, as I mentioned, that they're in major markets. And as you and I and many others have talked about before, there are definitely some cost synergies that we're able to apply to that.
But for the most part, these are good businesses that had good revenue streams and there's no need, no desire to go in and change any type of the top line dynamics whatsoever. And a lot of these owners are still involved and they're expected to continue to do more of the same, and there won't be adjustments moving forward from that perspective. We're just happy to have these very high-quality businesses, especially in tuck-in situations, which, as you said, makes it more ultimately accretive for our shareholders.
Great. And then maybe last thing. We don't often ask you about this, but intra-quarter, there was an announcement about some management changes, updates, et cetera. Any perspective you can provide us on what you guys are doing there?
A.J. this is, as you well know, a lot of companies in the same way, but I think we've taken it very seriously with the Board succession planning because inevitably, it's going to occur. And with Steve is willing to take a step back and as he approaches retirement, that kind of triggered a lot of decisions, but it was pretty easy to do because we had a succession plan. And so we're excited about the elevated responsibilities for the executives that we named in there, and I think it's going to add a lot of value in different perspectives. So I think the whole company is excited about it.
And again, I don't think there's any big surprises. These are -- were part of a long-term plan we've been working on for quite some time.
The next question comes from Parker Snure with Raymond James.
This is Parker on for John Ransom. And sorry if I asked anything that was said on, I missed the beginning of the call. But the preneed cemetery selling, I know you noted the lower end consumer is kind of hold it in their flat year-over-year. I know you guys have done some changes over the past couple of years or maybe just losing some of the payment terms on some of those contracts. What would you, I guess, attribute the lower end stability to? Is it just kind of core resilience and the lower-end consumer? Is it some of the loosening of the payment terms? Is there anything else that you would note just on that segment?
There's not any type of loosing of payment terms or anything along those lines. There's really not even unusual incentives that are in there that are creating a situation where it's compressing the margin of these sales. There's some pull-forward effect going on, as we've said, and we'll continue to grow. We need that volume to help us as the #1 lead source. And we think we'll continue to get a little bit better on that, as we've already said, from going from down 2-ish percent to maybe flattish next year, will help that -- help our sales counselors get in front of more customers, but there's not any type of changing of terms or incentives or anything along those lines that's occurring in these situations. We're here for the long term, and we're not panic at all in the short term. We feel very good about the future, especially preneed cemetery.
Okay. And then late in the third quarter, early fourth quarter, there was obviously some big hurricanes down in Florida. I know you guys have a decent amount of exposure in Florida and the Southeast. Did you see an impact kind of late in the third quarter, early fourth quarter, whether it be on funeral volumes or some of the preneed selling activity?
Well, anything to do is funeral volumes is really just kind of a delay, right? I mean it's something that was going to happen one week would need to happen in the next week. We did have, I'd say, a shutdown of a week or 10 days essentially related to those particular markets. Western Florida going all the way across Florida as well related to preneed cemetery. But ultimately, we bounce back from that as well. Maybe there's a little bit of, call it, $0.01 or $0.02 for the quarter of a headwind related to it. But as a general statement, the business is resilient, most importantly for us, as a management team, our associates ended up okay and their houses and such and their personal situations, which we're very concerned about, and we're very pleased that we pulled together and we're able to manage through it the way that we did.
Okay. And if I can just get one last one. Just more of a high-level question on acquisitions. When you're acquiring these smaller kind of regional or mom-and-pop operators, what types of things are you doing when you're going through the integration process? I'm assuming it's things like overlaying some of your preneed selling, integrating the type platform? And how should we think about some of the synergies that you're able to realize on these deals? And maybe the effective multiple or how you're able to work down the purchase multiple down to the effect of multiple over the course of a few years when you're doing these acquisitions?
Well, what I was saying before is that multiples really haven't changed. It's the pipeline that's filling, and we're still paying very fair multiples. So you can call that kind of 8 to 10x EBITDA pre-synergies. I think we get a turn pretty quick for some of the synergies we have just based on our scale. We have both local scale within a market, especially a major market, and we have national scale with purchasing power of the size of our company being by far the largest in the industry. So that's going to get you something right away, almost it turn right away.
And the rest of the things are really -- talking about new revenue streams that we had that maybe an independent or better ways to go about utilizing our Salesforce CRM processes and some of the other things that were utilized the technology that made us so much better and more efficient out COVID.
But for the most part, the underlying businesses and the revenue streams are very solid, and we're not going in and adjusting those for call in different plays especially in the situations which we're most happy where a lot of these former owners have stayed on and become part of our management team, which helps it to be even more of an accretive situation over the long term with their leadership staying with SCI.
This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to SCI management for any closing remarks.
Thank you, everybody, for being on the call today. Happy Halloween, and we will speak to you at our fourth quarter earnings call in February. Thanks so much.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.