Carriage Services Announces Strong Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Results and Issues 2026 Guidance

Conference call on Thursday, February 26, 2026 at 8:00 a.m. Central Time

HOUSTON, Feb. 25, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Carriage Services, Inc. (NYSE: CSV) today announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2025.

Company Fourth Quarter and Full Year Highlights:

• GAAP diluted EPS of $0.77 compared to $0.62 in the prior year quarter, resulting in an increase of 24.2%;

• Adjusted diluted EPS of $0.75 compared to $0.62 in the prior year quarter, resulting in an increase of 21.0%;

• Total revenue grew 8.0% over the prior year quarter, primarily driven by an increase in funeral operating contract volume of 6.8% and a 25.5% growth in preneed cemetery sales production;

• GAAP diluted EPS of $3.25 compared to $2.10 in the prior year, resulting in growth of 54.8%;

• Adjusted diluted EPS of $3.20 compared to $2.65 in the prior year, resulting in an increase of 20.8%;

• Total revenue grew 3.3% over the prior year, primarily driven by a 2.3% increase in funeral operating contract volume and 13.4% growth in preneed cemetery sales production;

• Financial revenue increased 17.7% over the prior year, primarily driven by a 27.4% increase in insurance-funded preneed funeral contracts sold resulting in an increase in general agency commission revenue;

• Completed the strategic acquisition of two businesses that generated more than $15 million in revenue in 2024 and divested certain non-core assets throughout the year driving our leverage ratio down to 4.0x;

• The Company’s guidance for 2026 is $440-$450 million in total revenue, adjusted consolidated EBITDA of $135-140 million, adjusted diluted EPS of $3.35-$3.55 and adjusted free cash flow of $40-$50 million, which assumes $25-$30 million in capital expenditures.
  
  

Carlos Quezada, Vice Chairman and CEO, stated, "We are very pleased with our 2025 fourth quarter and full year performance. In the fourth quarter, total funeral operating revenue increased by 9.6%, primarily reflecting growth in funeral operating contract volume, while total cemetery operating revenue grew 18.4%, primarily driven by a strong performance in preneed cemetery sales production. Operating income grew 16.8% and adjusted consolidated EBITDA grew by 11.0%, while adjusted consolidated EBITDA margin grew by 80 bps to 30.8%, all versus the same quarter last year.

For the full year, Carriage delivered a strong financial performance, highlighted by GAAP diluted EPS growth of nearly 55% and adjusted diluted EPS growth of 21%, reflecting disciplined execution across our business. Operating revenue increased 6.1%, driven by balanced growth in both funeral and cemetery operations through higher contract volumes, improved pricing discipline, and continued strength in preneed cemetery sales production of 13.4% over the prior year. We also experienced impressive growth in financial revenue, primarily driven by a 27.4% increase in insurance-funded preneed funeral contracts sold. During the year, we completed strategic acquisitions of two high-quality businesses generating more than $15 million in annual revenue, while divesting non-core assets and further strengthening our balance sheet, ending the year with a 4.0x leverage ratio. Importantly, our results reflect a renewed focus on service excellence, empowering our teams to deliver premier experiences while driving sustainable performance. With this performance, Carriage concludes three consecutive years of consistent financial improvement while strengthening our balance sheet and positioning the Company well for its next phase of disciplined growth and long-term value creation," concluded Mr. Quezada.

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

• Total revenue for the three months ended December 31, 2025 increased $7.8 million compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. We experienced a 10.5% increase in the consolidated number of preneed interment rights (property) sold and a 7.2% increase in the consolidated average price per preneed interment rights sold. Additionally, we experienced a 4.6% increase in the consolidated average revenue per funeral contract and a 0.2% increase in consolidated funeral contract volume.

• Net income for the three months ended December 31, 2025 increased $2.4 million compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. We experienced a $3.0 million increase in gross profit contribution from our businesses and a $1.0 million decrease in net (gain) loss on divestitures and impairment charges; partially offset by a $1.0 million increase in income tax expense and a $0.1 million increase in interest expense.

• Total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025 increased $13.2 million compared to the year ended December 31, 2024. We experienced an 8.1% increase in the consolidated average price per preneed interment rights sold and a 0.3% increase in the consolidated number of preneed interment rights (property) sold. Additionally, we experienced a 2.6% increase in the consolidated average revenue per funeral contract, which was partially offset by a 1.3% decrease in consolidated funeral contract volume.

• Net income for the year ended December 31, 2025 increased $18.6 million compared to the year ended December 31, 2024. We experienced a $3.3 million increase in gross profit contribution from our businesses and a $10.4 million decrease in general, administrative, and other expenses as the prior year primarily comprised of one-time costs related to executive severance payments and the Company’s review of strategic alternatives. Additionally, a decline of $3.7 million in interest expense and a $3.3 million decrease from the impact of divestitures and impairment charges were partially offset by a $1.6 million increase in income tax expense and a $0.4 million decrease in net gain on property damage, net of insurance claims.
  
  

OUTLOOK FOR 2026

CALL AND INVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACT

Carriage Services has scheduled a conference call for tomorrow, February 26, 2026 at 8:00 a.m. Central Time. To participate in the call, please dial 800-330-6710 (Conference ID - 3387880) or to listen live over the internet via webcast click link. An audio archive of the call will be available on demand via the Company's website at www.carriageservices.com.

Carriage Services is a leading provider of funeral and cemetery services and merchandise in the United States. Carriage operated 155 funeral homes in 24 states and 28 cemeteries in 9 states as of December 31, 2025. It is dedicated to delivering premier experiences through innovation, partnership, and elevated service.

NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

This earnings release uses Non-GAAP financial measures to present the financial performance of the Company. Non-GAAP financial measures should be viewed in addition to, and not as an alternative for, the Company’s reported operating results or cash flow from operations or any other measure of performance as determined in accordance with GAAP. We believe the Non-GAAP results are useful to investors to compare our results to previous periods, to provide insight into the underlying long-term performance trends in our business and to provide the opportunity to differentiate ourselves as the best consolidation platform in the industry against the performance of other funeral and cemetery companies.

Reconciliations of the Non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP measures are also provided in this earnings release.

The Non-GAAP financial measures used in this earnings release and the definitions of them used by the Company for our internal management purposes in this earnings release are described below.

• Special items are defined as charges or credits included in our GAAP financial statements that can vary from period to period and are not reflective of costs incurred in the ordinary course of our operations. The tax adjustment related to certain discrete items is not tax effected, all other special items are taxed at the operating tax rate.

• Adjusted net income is defined as net income after adjustments for special items that we believe do not directly reflect our core operations and may not be indicative of our normal business operations. Adjusted net income margin is defined as adjusted net income as a percentage of total revenue.

• Consolidated EBITDA is defined as operating income, plus depreciation and amortization expense, non-cash stock compensation and net loss on divestitures, disposals, and impairment charges. Consolidated EBITDA margin is defined as consolidated EBITDA as a percentage of total revenue.

• Adjusted consolidated EBITDA is defined as consolidated EBITDA after adjustments for severance and separation costs and other special items. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA margin is defined as adjusted consolidated EBITDA as a percentage of total revenue.

• Adjusted free cash flow is defined as cash provided by operating activities, adjusted by special items as deemed necessary, less cash for capital expenditures, which include cemetery property development costs, facility repairs and improvements, equipment, furniture, and vehicle purchases. Adjusted free cash flow margin is defined as adjusted free cash flow as a percentage of total revenue.

• Funeral operating EBITDA is defined as funeral gross profit, plus depreciation and amortization and regional and unallocated costs, less financial EBITDA, ancillary EBITDA, and divested EBITDA related to the funeral home segment. Funeral operating EBITDA margin is defined as funeral operating EBITDA as a percentage of funeral operating revenue.

• Cemetery operating EBITDA is defined as cemetery gross profit, plus depreciation and amortization and regional and unallocated costs, less financial EBITDA and divested EBITDA related to the cemetery segment. Cemetery operating EBITDA margin is defined as cemetery operating EBITDA as a percentage of cemetery operating revenue.

• Preneed cemetery sales is defined as cemetery property, merchandise, and services sold prior to death.

• Financial EBITDA is defined as financial revenue, less the related expenses. Financial revenue and the related expenses are presented within Other revenue and Other expenses, respectively, on the Consolidated Statement of Operations. Financial EBITDA margin is defined as financial EBITDA as a percentage of financial revenue.

• Ancillary revenue is defined as revenues from our ancillary businesses, which include a flower shop, a monument business, a pet cremation business and our online cremation businesses. Ancillary revenue and the related expenses are presented within Other revenue and Other expenses, respectively, on the Consolidated Statement of Operations.

• Ancillary EBITDA is defined as ancillary revenue, less expenses related to our ancillary businesses noted above. Ancillary EBITDA margin is defined as ancillary EBITDA as a percentage of ancillary revenue.

• Divested revenue is defined as revenues from certain funeral home and cemetery businesses that we have divested.

• Divested EBITDA is defined as divested revenue, less field level and financial expenses related to the divested businesses noted above. Divested EBITDA margin is defined as divested EBITDA as a percentage of divested revenue.

• Overhead expenses are defined as regional and unallocated funeral and cemetery costs and general, administrative, and other costs, excluding home office depreciation and non-cash stock compensation.

• Adjusted basic earnings per share (EPS) is defined as GAAP basic earnings per share, adjusted for special items.

• Adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) is defined as GAAP diluted earnings per share, adjusted for special items.
  
  

Funeral Operating EBITDA and Cemetery Operating EBITDA

Our operations are reported in two business segments: Funeral Home operations and Cemetery operations. Our operating level results highlight trends in volumes, revenue, operating EBITDA (the individual business’ cash earning power/locally controllable business profit), and operating EBITDA margin (the individual business’ controllable profit margin).

Funeral operating EBITDA and cemetery operating EBITDA are defined above. Funeral and cemetery gross profit is defined as revenue less “field costs and expenses” — a line item encompassing these areas of costs: i) funeral and cemetery field costs, ii) field depreciation and amortization expense, and iii) regional and unallocated funeral and cemetery costs. Funeral and cemetery field costs include cost of service, funeral and cemetery merchandise costs, operating expenses, labor, and other related expenses incurred at the business level.

Regional and unallocated funeral and cemetery costs presented in our GAAP statement consist primarily of salaries and benefits of our regional leadership, incentive compensation opportunity to our field employees, and other related costs for field infrastructure. These costs, while necessary to operate our businesses as currently operated within our unique, decentralized platform, are not controllable operating expenses at the field level as the composition, structure and function of these costs are determined by executive leadership in the Houston Support Center. These costs are components of our overall overhead platform presented within consolidated EBITDA and adjusted consolidated EBITDA. We do not directly or indirectly “push down” any of these expenses to the individual business’ field level margins.

We believe that our “regional and unallocated funeral and cemetery costs” are necessary to support our decentralized, high performance culture operating framework, and as such, are included in consolidated EBITDA and adjusted consolidated EBITDA, which more accurately reflects the cash earning power of the Company as an operating and consolidation platform.

Usefulness and Limitations of These Measures

When used in conjunction with GAAP financial measures, our total EBITDA, consolidated EBITDA and adjusted consolidated EBITDA are supplemental measures of operating performance that we believe are useful measures to facilitate comparisons to our historical consolidated and business level performance and operating results.

We believe our presentation of adjusted consolidated EBITDA, a key metric used internally by our management, provides investors with a supplemental view of our operating performance that facilitates analysis and comparisons of our ongoing business operations because it excludes items that may not be indicative of our ongoing operating performance.

Our total field EBITDA, consolidated EBITDA and adjusted consolidated EBITDA are not necessarily comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies due to different methods of calculation. Our presentation is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. Funeral operating EBITDA, cemetery operating EBITDA, financial EBITDA, ancillary EBITDA and divested EBITDA are not consolidated measures of profitability.

Our total field EBITDA excludes certain costs presented in our GAAP statement that we do not allocate to the individual business’ field level margins, as noted above.

Consolidated EBITDA excludes certain items that we believe do not directly reflect our core operations and may not be indicative of our normal business operations. A reconciliation to operating income, the most directly comparable GAAP measure, is set forth below.

Therefore, these measures may not provide a complete understanding of our performance and should be reviewed in conjunction with our GAAP financial measures. We strongly encourage investors to review the Company's consolidated financial statements and publicly filed reports in their entirety and not rely on any single financial measure.

RECONCILIATION OF NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES

The Non-GAAP financial measures are presented for additional information and are reconciled to their most comparable GAAP measures, all of which are reflected in the tables below.

Reconciliation of Operating income to Consolidated EBITDA and Adjusted consolidated EBITDA (in thousands) and Operating income margin to Adjusted consolidated EBITDA margin for the three months and year ended December 31, 2025 and 2024: