Carriage Services, Inc. (NYSE: CSV) (“Carriage Services” or the
“Company”). Mel Payne, Chairman and CEO, issued the following
statement:
"I am very honored and excited to announce in
the same week as Carriage’s Thirtieth Year Anniversary on June 1st
that we have formed a new four member Strategic Vision and
Principles Group of our eight member Executive Team, comprised of
myself as Chairman, Ben Brink, Steve Metzger and Carlos Quezada.
This core group of three proven Executive Leaders as part of our
new Strategic Vision and Principles Group constitutes the first
step toward a long term Chairman and CEO Succession Plan and is a
personal milestone achievement for me as Co-Founder of Carriage,
although I have absolutely no intention of retiring, stepping back
or slowing down from these duties, as evidenced by the recent seven
year extension of my Employment Agreement. Patience, it turns out,
is a hugely critical virtue in Succession Planning just as it has
been for me in investing and building Carriage into a
Being The Best High Performance Culture
Company that just happens to be in the funeral and
cemetery industry.
Ben, Steve and Carlos will each be promoted to
Executive Vice President and assume new responsibilities and duties
as follows:
Ben Brink joined Carriage in January 2009
and recently became our Principal Financial Officer in addition to
his prior roles as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Ben will
be responsible for all Houston Support Center Teams related to
Capital Structure Strategy and Execution, Investor Relations,
Treasury, Accounting and Reporting, Internal Audit, Tax, and Trust
Management Administration and Compliance. Ben graduated from the
University of Tennessee with a B.S. in Finance and served as Cash
Manager for International Paper before joining Carriage.
Ben joined Carriage in early 2009 in the midst
of the 2008/2009 financial crisis and market crash, immediately
after I assumed sole responsibility as Chief Investment Officer for
our trust fund management on October 14, 2008. As I
looked within our Company at the time for someone with high
potential to grow and develop in the trust fund fixed income and
equity investments area, together with the intellectual capacity to
learn and explain to others the evolving highly sophisticated
financial and valuation concepts related to Carriage’s three core
models, Ben was a “no brainer” obvious choice. He also has played
an important leadership role in the continued evolution of Carriage
since 2008, and particularly the High Performance
Transformation of Carriage since September 2018.
It would be an understatement to say that over
the last twelve years Ben has gained the equivalent of a
Harvard/Columbia MBA as my “Battle Tested and Fully Vested Foxhole
Buddy” through several major transition phases of Carriage, a Badge
of Honor that only a few others share thirty years after Carriage’s
founding.
Steve Metzger joined Carriage in May 2018,
only six months before I restructured operating and executive
leadership and initiated first a performance turnaround and then a
complete high performance transformation over the last two and one
half years. Steve quickly proved to be not only a great legal mind
whose judgment on all matters is aligned with the high performance
culture nature of Carriage, but a wonderful leader whose in-house
team of lawyers have become vital business partners with our
operating Managing Partners, Directors of Support and Regional
Partners. He and his team have been able to achieve consistent
triumphant litigation outcomes across our operating portfolio of
businesses, and then as “leader owners of Carriage” used the
symptoms of the litigation to initiate policies and training to
mitigate future risks. Amazingly, Steve and his team were able to
seamlessly handle our four large transformative acquisitions at the
end of 2019 completely in-house, as they do in almost all matters,
a unique “First Who, Then What” differentiating
characteristic for a NYSE public company.
Steve has a keen curiosity, the intellectual
capacity and determination to learn, grow and develop into a
broadly knowledgeable executive business leader, especially in the
areas of investing, operations, acquisitions and governance.
Steve’s responsibilities as Executive Vice President, General
Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer will now include legal,
human resources, risk management, acquisitions and divestitures and
governance. Steve will collaborate closely with Shawn Phillips,
Peggy Schappaugh, Carlos Quezada, Ben Brink and me on acquisition
strategy and execution.
Steve received both his B.A. in Government and
his Juris Doctorate from The University of Texas at Austin. Prior
to Carriage, Steve served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel
and Secretary for a publicly traded company in the restaurant
industry and prior to that spent seven years with Service
Corporation International in various leadership roles within the
Legal Department.
Carlos Quezada joined Carriage in June of 2020
in the midst of the Coronavirus Pandemic and has built a “Cemetery
High Performance Sales Culture Organization” over this past year
that is driving record preneed property sales across our portfolio,
which I covered comprehensively on Pages 27-33 in
Sections V and VI of my
2020 Shareholder Letter. The Cemetery High Performance
Sales Culture Organization is now populated increasingly by
A Players making consistent Property Sales Plays broadly
throughout our cemetery portfolio. Carlos and his team have been
highly energizing and inspiring to all of us because they are
totally driven, ridiculously passionate and fully committed to not
only high and sustainable performance success in our cemetery
portfolio, but in all areas of Carriage.
Carlos is being promoted to Executive Vice
President and Chief Operating Officer, responsible for all Field
Operational and Sales Teams and Businesses. He will initially be on
a learning journey across our portfolio of funeral homes and
cemeteries, while simultaneously building the deep and meaningful
relationships that will lead to trust and strong followship by our
Managing Partners and Directors of Support of his proven leadership
and Being The Best Vision for our company. Given
the importance of digital tools and technology as accelerators of
outstanding operational service and sales performance in our
industry, Carlos will also assume responsibility for Information
Technology Teams in our Houston Support Center.
Carlos and our three Senior Vice Presidents and
Regional Partners, Paul Elliott in the West, Shawn Phillips in the
Central and Chris Manceaux in the East, together with Peggy
Schappaugh, Vice President and Head of the Operations and
Acquisitions Analysis and Planning Group, will collaborate as
Executive Team Partners to lead our Funeral and Cemetery Portfolio
Performance as we continue our Good To Great II
Journey in the years ahead.
Prior to joining Carriage, Carlos was a Managing
Director for Service Corporation International from 2009 to 2020,
where he served in leadership roles for both sales and operations.
Carlos was recruited into the deathcare industry after serving
almost twenty years in the hospitality industry, where in his first
job in Guadalajara, Mexico he became at age eighteen notably the
youngest Manager of a McDonald’s franchise at the time and a
graduate with the acclaimed Golden Seal from Hamburger University
in Chicago.
Carlos was recruited by Hyatt International into
their Management Training Program where he spent one year learning
every aspect of hotel operations as well as the foundations for the
highest quality service excellence and most effective sales
hospitality concepts. Carlos was with Hyatt five years but quickly
graduated to outside sales to drive Hyatt room occupancy rates
higher through third party travel management companies and was
ultimately promoted to business development to expand the Hyatt
franchise into the Latin American Region, where he was later
recruited to help expand a Mexican 5 Star Boutique Hotel Group into
other Latin American countries.
Carlos then spent almost nine years developing
the vision, service and food concepts, strategy and operating
execution of two different restaurant chains in Central America,
the last almost five years as an entrepreneur building a start-up
chain of full service restaurants as Chairman of the Board, Chief
Executive Officer, President and an Equity Partner. He negotiated
the sale of his ownership to his investors and transitioned
Executive Leadership after increasing risk and security concerns
for himself and his family, after which he decided to change
careers, countries and languages by pursuing his personal and
career goals and dreams in America.
Carlos graduated with an MBA from Universidad
Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City, Guatemala, with a Masters in
Management from Tulane University Freeman School of Business in New
Orleans, from the Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business
School in Boston, as a Certified Cemetery Funeral Executive from
ICCFA University in Sterling, Virginia, and as a Certified
Professional Coach from International Coach Federation in
Lexington, Kentucky.
I have often described the noble nature of the
work that our wonderful people do for their client families and
communities as “High (Emotional) Value Personal Services and
Sales.” With Carlos’ extensive background in the hospitality
industry in both personal services and sales, together with his
proven operations and sales leadership and success in our industry,
including especially over this past year at Carriage, I have never
been more excited about Carriage’s leaders in all areas continuing
to take our Being The Best High Performance Ideas
and Concepts to even higher levels of differentiating success in
our industry.
Part II of my 50 page 2020 Shareholder Letter
titled “A Tale of High Performance Transformation”
covered the “Primary Drivers of High Performance in 2020 and Future
Years” in twelve different sections listed on Page 11. The
first and most important section (Pages 12-20) was titled
“High Performance Culture Concept: First Who, Then
What,” which explained the top-grading process throughout
our organizational structure since September 2018 of getting the
Right Who’s in the Right Seats on
the Carriage Good To Great II Journey Bus, which
was the number one reason our Company executed a year of
Transformative High Performance in 2020.
We are now positioned like never before as a
Free Cash Flow Value Creation Platform to step on
the Capital Allocation Performance Gas and
accelerate the Carriage Enterprise Bus toward its
Good To Great II Journey Destination, which we are
now defining for the first time as a CSV Share Price of $77.34 by
December 31, 2024. The four Executive Team Members of our
Strategic Vision and Principles Group, together with the other four
Executive Team Members and forty-two other senior leaders of
Carriage, are committed and incentivized to execute our three core
models to achieve the high and sustainable operating and financial
performance required to drive five year 40% compounded CSV share
price returns from $14.38 on May 15, 2020 to $77.34 by
the end of 2024.
I will remain highly engaged in all areas of
Carriage as Chairman of our eight member Executive Team and four
member Strategic Vision and Principles Group, allocating my time
more intensely toward savvy and flexible Capital Allocation,
Investor Relations, Trust Fund Strategy and Execution, and
Acquisitions, but always on mentoring, coaching, growing and
developing our “Right Who Leaders” into their
fullest potential as the future leaders of Carriage."
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT ON FORWARD-LOOKING
STATEMENTS
Certain statements made herein or elsewhere by,
or on behalf of, the Company that are not historical facts are
intended to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of
Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section
21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In addition
to historical information, this Press Release contains certain
statements and information that may constitute forward-looking
statements within the safe harbor provisions of the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other
than statements of historical information, should be deemed to be
forward-looking statements. These statements include, but are not
limited to, statements regarding any projections of earnings,
revenue, cash flow, capital allocation, debt levels, equity prices,
corporate incentive compensation, compounded share price returns,
acquisition activities or other financial items; any statements
regarding future economic conditions or performance; any statements
of belief; and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the
foregoing and are based on our current expectations and beliefs
concerning future developments and their potential effect on us.
The words “may”, “will”, “estimate”, “intend”, “believe”, “expect”,
“seek”, “project”, “forecast”, “foresee”, “should”, “would”,
“could”, “plan”, “anticipate” and other similar words or
expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements,
which are generally not historical in nature. While management
believes that these forward-looking statements are reasonable as
and when made, there can be no assurance that future developments
affecting us will be those that we anticipate. All comments
concerning our expectations for future revenue and operating
results are based on our forecasts for our existing operations and
do not include the potential impact of any future acquisitions. Our
forward-looking statements involve significant risks and
uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control) and
assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially
from our historical experience and our present expectations or
projections. Factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those made or suggested by the forward-looking
statements contained herein include those identified in the
Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended
December 31, 2020, our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for
the quarter ended March 31, 2021, and other public filings and
press releases, available at www.carriageservices.com. Investors
are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking
statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no
obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking
statements after the date they are made, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent
required by law.
Carriage Services is a leading provider of
funeral and cemetery services and merchandise in the United States.
Carriage operates 173 funeral homes in 26 states and 32 cemeteries
in 12 states.
For more information, please contact Ben Brink
at 713-332-8441 or email
InvestorRelations@carriageservices.com.
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