David Sloan

One, they can either get bought up by somebody who wants the cemetery for some reason, and they can become part of a larger enterprise, and they'll build a mausoleum on land that they didn't think they could use, etc.

Right.

There are big corporations who have bought up dozens and dozens of funeral homes.

And now control much of the funeral market in the United States.

And they started to buy cemeteries.

But, you know, most cemeteries are not private enterprises.

Most cemeteries are nonprofits.

Or they're public companies.

And so it didn't go as well.

You know, it's not like they have as expansive a set of holdings.

They do have a considerable number of cemeteries.

But what they bring to it is they bring the mowers you're going to use can be cheaper because you're going to get them from them.

Right.

You know, the trimmer is the same thing.

If they own three cemeteries, they can have one gang of mowers that go from one to the other to the other.

And so they try to do cost cuts that are not negative to the business.

Second is that the people who own the cemetery or manage the cemetery reach out to the people who have people buried there.

And they say, we need your help because we no longer have the funds to maintain the cemetery.

And so there's groups that started to be created, say, in the 80s and 90s called Friends Organizations of Cemeteries.

And they will often, in smaller cities or smaller cemeteries, they'll become really the maintenance crew.