Earnings Call Transcript - CSV Q4 2024

Steve Metzger, President

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and year-end results for 2024. In addition to myself, on the call this morning from management are Carlos Quezada, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors; and John Enwright, Chief Financial Officer. On the Carriage Services website, you can find our earnings press release, which was issued yesterday after the market closed. Our press release is intended to supplement our remarks this morning and include supplemental financial information, including the reconciliation of differences between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Today's call will begin with formal remarks from Carlos and John and will be followed by a question-and-answer period. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, we'll make some forward-looking statements, including comments about our business, projections and plans. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties and only reflect our views as of today. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, factors identified in our earnings release as well as in our SEC filings, all of which can be found on our website. Thank you all for joining us this morning. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Carlos.

Carlos Quezada, CEO

Thank you, Steve, and welcome to everyone joining today's fourth quarter and full year earnings call. I am pleased to share the outcomes of a transformative year at Carriage Services, a testament to our dedication and strategic execution. Our results reflect our financial strategy and commitment to innovation and service excellence. Before sharing the results, I want to express my deepest gratitude to every member of the Carriage team. Your unwavering dedication is the cornerstone of our success and provides needed comfort to the families we serve. We truly appreciate you and your alignment with our vision and values. I am also thrilled to welcome John Enwright as Carriage's new Chief Financial Officer. In just seven weeks, John has dived deeply into our operations, embraced our culture, and provided invaluable insights and leadership as we continue to grow into a best-in-class organization. Welcome to Carriage, John. Today, I will highlight our financial performance for the fourth quarter and the full year and update you on the progress of some of our strategic objectives. Joe will provide additional detail, focusing on overhead, cash flow, leverage ratio, and our guidance for 2025. Now let's move on to the financial highlights. For the fourth quarter, we reported total revenue of $97.7 million, a decrease of $1.1 million or 1.1% compared to the same quarter last year. We experienced an anticipated decline in funeral volumes against a challenging prior year comparable, resulting in a 7.3% decrease, partially offset by a 1.4% increase in our average revenue per funeral contract. The volume decrease is primarily linked to a shift in the flu season, which usually starts late in the fall and increases through the winter months. Our January and February volume trends are positive, indicating that a late flu season may have shifted volume from the fourth quarter of last year to the first quarter of this year. Additionally, we experienced an 8.4% increase in preneed interment rights sold and a 4.2% increase in the average price per preneed interment rights sold, which helped offset total revenue to a decrease of just 1.1%. When breaking down revenue, funeral operating revenue was $58.7 million in the fourth quarter versus $61.3 million last year, a $2.6 million decrease or 4.2%. Lower funeral home volumes resulted in a reduction of 831 contracts or 7.3%. This was partially offset by a slight increase in average revenue per contract of $75 or 1.4%. Cemetery operating revenue for the fourth quarter was $29.8 million versus $26.7 million last year, resulting in a $3.1 million increase or 11.6%, driven by an increase of preneed interments sold of 263 contracts or 8.4% and an increase per preneed cemetery contract of $937 or 9.2% compared to the same period last year, almost offsetting the revenue loss in our funeral segment. For the full year, total revenue finished at $404.2 million, an increase of $21.7 million or 5.7% primarily driven by the continued growth in consolidated cemetery preneed sales as we experienced a 22.9% increase in preneed interment rights sold and a 7.3% increase in the average price per preneed interment rights sold, which led to total preneed cemetery sales of $94.3 million, an increase of $19.9 million or 26.7% when compared to the same period last year. Moving to adjusted consolidated EBITDA. For the fourth quarter, we ended at $29.3 million, a decrease of $3.1 million or 9.6%. This decrease was driven by lower revenue in our funeral segment, combined with an expected $1.2 million increase in our Trinity system investment, which we don't adjust for. For adjusted consolidated EBITDA margin for the fourth quarter, we finished at 30%, a decrease of 280 basis points compared to last year. For the full year, adjusted consolidated EBITDA finished at $126.2 million, an increase of $13 million or 11.5%. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA margin for the full year remained strong at 31.2%, an increase of 160 basis points compared to last year. Adjusted diluted EPS for the fourth quarter was $0.62 per share, down by $0.15 or 19.5% versus the prior year quarter. And for the full year, we ended at $2.65 per share, an increase of $0.46 per share or 21%. We are pleased with our financial performance for the full year of 2024, highlighted by a continued focus on execution while optimizing our systems and approach to support organic growth. Our strategic adjustments throughout the year paid off despite a decrease in funeral volumes in the fourth quarter, influenced by the shift in a later-than-normal flu season. After raising our guidance twice in 2024, we are thrilled to report that we exceeded expectations across most of our financial metrics. This achievement underscores our management capabilities and operational excellence, setting a strong precedent for continued growth. In alignment with our ongoing commitment to excellence, we're excited to announce the expansion of our supply chain strategies through the introduction of our new earned core line. This launch reinforces our national partnerships and aligns with our strategic objectives of continuous improvement and disciplined capital allocation. These efforts collectively enhance our service capabilities and create additional shareholder value. Moving into Phase 2 of this strategy, we're focusing on leveraging our new national partnership with Express Funeral Funding for insurance assignments. This collaboration will provide added value to the families we serve by enhancing the financial flexibility of our offerings, potentially increasing sales across our operations. The full rollout of this program is anticipated in the second quarter of this year, marking a significant milestone in our strategic plan. Subsequent phases will address casket core line, fleet management, and other essential procurement needs, further optimizing our operational efficiency and service excellence. In closing, as we reflect on our accomplishments and insights gained in 2024, Carriage is at the dawn of an exciting future. With a robust foundation built over the past two years, we're ideally positioned for sustained financial growth and industry leadership. Our strategic commitments to passion for service, optimizing our supply chain, and fostering continuous improvement have sharpened our competitive edge and set the stage for groundbreaking innovations. As we move forward, our culture of excellence equips our teams more than ever to deliver superior service, driven by our unwavering commitment to creating premier experiences. We are eager to expand our horizons, deepen our connections with the community, and become a best-in-class organization. At Carriage, we don't just adapt to change; we lead it.

John Enwright, CFO

Thank you, Carlos. I would like to welcome everyone to the call and share a brief update on my first couple of months with the company. I have now been at Carriage for seven weeks. In that time, I've become even more excited about the opportunity that lies ahead for me and the company. The vision that has been laid out and executed upon over the last two years is exciting, and I feel fortunate to join the company at a time when there are so many opportunities in front of us. As important to me are the people and the culture. The team that Carlos has built is impressive, and I look forward to working with everyone in the organization to continue to drive value for all stakeholders. Now on to fourth quarter results. Cash provided by operating activities for the quarter was $9.3 million, which was down $4.4 million from the prior year quarter of $13.7 million. Adjusted free cash flow for the fourth quarter was $8.9 million, which was down $3.9 million from the prior year quarter of $12.8 million. The change in adjusted free cash flow was driven by lower income in the quarter, primarily in the Funeral segment, working capital adjustments, and spending for Project Trinity, which equated to approximately $1.2 million in expenses. We paid $3 million towards our outstanding debt this quarter, ending the year with a maintained leverage ratio of 4.3x, representing almost a full turn from 5.1x at the end of 2023. This reduction in leverage illustrates our commitment to disciplined capital allocation, along with the impact of our strong annual performance. We experienced a reduction in interest expense for the quarter of $2.1 million due to the midyear amendment of our credit facility. At year-end, we had paid down our credit facility by $42.1 million from $179.1 million at the end of 2023 to $137 million at the end of 2024. Turning to capital expenditures. For the full year, we have invested $8.8 million for growth CapEx, $7.3 million for maintenance CapEx, and $2.9 million for Trinity. Now shifting to overhead. Overhead was $12.9 million for the quarter compared to $11.9 million in the prior year quarter, resulting in a $1 million increase in overhead expenses. The overhead variance was driven by $1.2 million relating to Project Trinity costs as we prepare for our exciting implementation of this ERP and customer experience platform early in 2025. Overhead as a percentage of revenue was 13.2% for the fourth quarter of 2024, which is up 120 basis points from the prior year quarter of 12%. If you exclude costs associated with Project Trinity, overhead as a percentage of revenue was basically flat to the prior year quarter at 12%, which is within our communicated range. Now let's shift to the outlook for 2025. As we review the outlook, it is important to note that all metrics include the impact of planned divestitures, but do not include any potential benefits or impacts associated with acquisitions. As we get back to growth mode, any benefits or impacts associated with acquisitions, we will adjust our forecast accordingly. Revenues are planned to be in the $400 million to $410 million range compared to $404.2 million. That would result in an expectation of sales being plus or minus 1%. However, if we were to exclude the impact of divestitures, we are anticipating revenue growth in the low single-digit range, primarily driven by preneed property sales. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $128 million to $133 million compared to $126.2 million. We are anticipating slight improvement in our margins based on our investment in supply chain in 2024, coupled with the normalization of certain corporate expenses. Adjusted diluted EPS of $3.10 to $3.30, primarily driven by lower interest rates and a lower effective tax rate. We are expecting interest expense savings in the range of $5 million to $6 million associated with the pay down of our credit facility in both 2024 and 2025, coupled with a full year benefit of the midyear amendment, which resulted in lower fees. The adjusted tax rate is expected to be in the range of 28% to 30%, down from 34.2% in 2024. For overhead, we continue to focus on our strategic objectives, which will result in slightly elevated overhead costs in 2025, driven by Project Trinity. However, in the long term, we anticipate overhead efficiencies after implementation is complete and in connection with other internal initiatives. For the full year, we expect adjusted overhead to finish within 13% to 14% of revenue, which is within our expected range. Based on the above assumptions, we anticipate adjusted free cash flow in the range of $40 million to $50 million. As a reminder, we have adjusted our calculation of free cash flow to include total capital spend rather than just maintenance capital. Total capital spending in 2025 is expected to be in the range of $19 million to $21 million. We anticipate our leverage ratio to end 2025 between 3.7x and 3.8x, right within our long-term leverage ratio target of 3.5x to 4x. The forecast on interest expense and leverage ratio assumes that we do not have any acquisitions in 2025. That concludes our prepared remarks, and I will turn it back over to the operator to open it up for questions.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

Congratulations on the beat versus a tough comp. First question, just a point of clarification on funeral volumes. On the last conference call, you said that October was kind of weak versus your experience in the third quarter. And it sounds like November and December were weak due to the shift of the flu season from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, said simply. You said that the trends improved in January and February. Are you saying January and February volume was up year-over-year? That's the point of clarification.

Carlos Quezada, CEO

Happy to address your question. It's a great question, by the way. So yes, in October, we noticed a little decline in volume on a year-over-year basis. It wasn't expected because I have mentioned in the past that the pull-forward effect will wind off through the fourth quarter, no later than the first quarter of 2025. And so it caught us by surprise to see that negative volume on an ad basis in October. And as you remember, we updated our guidance in October as we released Q3. We were being very thoughtful and conservative because of that trend. That trend continued in November and December, leading to the negative that we just disclosed for the fourth quarter. However, as we look into what happened, we did some research with CDC. It seems pretty clear that there is a shift of the flu season that came late this winter season and started really more into the end of December, beginning of January, and, of course, continues as we speak today. Consequently, today, we do have greater volume for both January and February than we had in Q1 of 2024.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

Great. And then your revenue guidance, $405 million at the midpoint for 2025. Again, excluding those divestitures that you called out, it would be more like $413 million, which is very close to my estimate of $415 million. On the divestitures specifically, what did you do on that front in 2024? I think there were some divestitures in 2024. The question is, how much revenue did those divestitures that were completed account for? How much adjusted EBITDA did they account for? And what were the proceeds of whatever you sold in 2024? And just to prepare you, I'm going to ask you the same question about 2025.

Steve Metzger, President

For 2024, roughly, we sold about $5.5 million worth of revenue, which represented around $1.8 million of EBITDA. Proceeds were just over $12 million for the year. So again, just to highlight, these are non-core assets for us, so not really our premier performing assets. As we look ahead, I'll skip to your next question, anticipating 2025. As we look at 2025 right now, and some of this is what we're targeting. We have a couple of things under contract that have not closed. But we're looking at roughly, call it, $25 million worth of proceeds. And there's a mix here of certain non-core assets and then some real estate. That amount accounts for around $9.5 million of revenue and about $3.3 million of EBITDA, kind of rough numbers on trailing 12.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

Got you. But the impact you said would be $7.9 million in revenue and $2.3 million in EBITDA. You just quoted a last 12-month number for or 2024 number for those non-core assets that are being sold.

Steve Metzger, President

Yes, that's correct because we're seeing some of that benefit or seeing some of the revenue and EBITDA benefit in 2025 until we divest.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

And then after completing these divestitures, how many funeral homes will you have remaining in terms of core funeral homes?

Steve Metzger, President

To confirm the number, this should result in fewer core funeral homes.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

And then what did you finish 2024 with funeral homes-wise? I don't think it was in the press release.

Steve Metzger, President

I believe, and I have to confirm, I believe it was 217.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

That includes the cemeteries, which is fine. Moving on to the guidance front, $130.5 million in EBITDA at the midpoint, up 3.4% year-over-year. You're seeing some leverage from operating expenses and so on. However, your guidance for adjusted EPS is up 21% at the midpoint, $3.20. Is this being driven by a lower interest rate expense and a lower tax rate assumption? Does that clarify the difference?

Steve Metzger, President

That's correct, Alex. So the tax rate is about, call it, 5 to 6 points lower expected to be as well as about $5 million to $6 million worth of savings in interest expense.

Carlos Quezada, CEO

We also have some savings that will contribute to EPS from our supply chain strategies as well.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

Great. And then I guess my last one is real quick. D&A and CapEx, both up D&A up 10%. I'm assuming that's related to the Trinity rollout.

Steve Metzger, President

A portion of that will be connected to Trinity because it won't be fully operational in 2025. Therefore, we won't see a full year's contribution from Trinity. Additionally, there will be a portion related to the amortization of the funeral property.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

Got you. And then on the CapEx front, total CapEx of $21 million this year, up from around $16 million last year, up 30%. I'm assuming that's still 50-50 maintenance growth. And what explains the increase? What are you spending incremental money in 2025 versus 2024?

Steve Metzger, President

There are some larger projects we're undertaking in specific cemeteries that are driving changes in our results, which differ from what we experienced in 2024 and are the main reason for the increase.

Carlos Quezada, CEO

The other thing, Alex, is, as you remember, the last two years, our focus was to drive as much as we could organic revenue. We were pretty much in the backseat of acquisitions. Our last acquisition was in March of 2023 with Greenlawn. Then we focused on paying down our debt. So part of that effort was to allocate capital to high-growth projects, which were primarily preneed cemetery. Allocating maintenance needs that were required in the field. As a consequence of that, we had a lower CapEx number for '23 and '24 than we have traditionally done. I remember 2022 was around $26 million. 2025 allows us now, since we are in a range where we feel comfortable with the leverage ratio to allocate more capital to growth opportunities on the cemetery side for preneed property and also some of those businesses that we did not put some maintenance CapEx to work to go back to work on in 2025. One more thought I wanted to address on revenue. While you see that guidance on revenue a little lower than expected, because you see the improvement on EBITDA and of course, EPS, we wouldn't divest from those businesses; our guidance would have been $410 million to $520 million of revenue for this year. So I wanted to point that out.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

Good. No, I appreciate that. Last question, I promise. With your year-end CapEx or net leverage ratio target of 3.7% to 3.8%, in line with that long-term goal of 3.5% to 4%, I'm assuming that you'll be perhaps in the second half, evaluating acquisitions. Again, you'll get more active on that front.

Steve Metzger, President

Yes, Alex. We are excited to return to growth. We have some divestiture proceeds that are significant, and we plan to use some of those funds to invest in higher-quality assets. We are currently in discussions with several owners of premier properties. While we can't predict how these conversations will unfold, we believe they reflect what will be on the market in 2025. As Carlos and John mentioned, although our revenue projections do not anticipate growth through acquisitions, we expect to have more information by Q2 and we aim to grow through acquisitions this year.

Alexander Paris, Analyst

Great. But just to be clear, the revenue guidance does not assume any incremental inorganic growth.

Steve Metzger, President

That's correct. That's right. We want to get a better feel on what that's going to look like here in Q2. I think there will be a better update then.

Carlos Quezada, CEO

Yes. So Alex, think about it from the perspective, right? The organic growth continues to be a focus at Carriage. However, this is the year that we're able to go back to growth mode. We have been able to get the structure that we needed over the last two years, get the team in place, and get the systems right. Being able to launch Trinity in 2025 is a really big deal for us this year. This enables us to have better margins than we had before. I mean, our margins are probably second to the highest one because of the result of COVID-19. Now we're able to focus on growth. As Steve mentioned, we have really good plans for that, and an update in Q2 will likely excite everyone.

John Franzreb, Analyst

I'd like to start with the fourth quarter results and what you've gleaned from maybe a seasonally somewhat weaker 4Q with your changing the pricing strategy on a more regionalized basis in light of maybe some of that weakness. Carlos, anything you could share about the pricing strategy and how it's playing out when you have maybe some unexpected curves in the volume?

Carlos Quezada, CEO

Yes. That's a great question, John. As we recognized back in October that we were struggling with some declines in volume that were not normal. As you remember, on a normal seasonal year or seasonalized year, you will have Q1 being the largest quarter of the year, Q4 being the second largest. Again, Q2 will be the third, and Q3 will be the fourth. However, if you look at 2024, Q4 is actually the last quarter of the year, which is very abnormal. Because of that, we were able to recognize that early; we fought for any call that was there, whether it was cremation or burial. That allowed us to keep as much volume as we wanted without maintaining a competitive price. So you didn't see that continuous trend in our pricing capacity over the last three months of the year. However, our strategic pricing review strategy continues to be in place. We are holding our strategic pricing review meetings for January, February, and March to update our pricing for 2024, and that will continue on an ongoing basis for 2025 quarter-to-quarter.

John Franzreb, Analyst

Fair enough. And listen, there's been a fair amount of commentary in the media about this being the worst flu season in 15 years. You mentioned that January and February are off to good starts. Can you kind of put it in context of how good of a start it is in light of some of the flu numbers? And also, do you expect that flu season to spill over into the second quarter?

Carlos Quezada, CEO

I can't speak to the second quarter as it largely depends on the spring weather. Here in Houston, we are experiencing warmer temperatures, but that may not last as long as we anticipated. Regarding your question about volume, I can provide some estimates: we expect a year-over-year volume increase of approximately 1% to 3% for January and about the same for February.

John Franzreb, Analyst

Got it. Just to shift a little bit about some of the cost side of the equation here. Are you done adding personnel as far as the supply chain initiatives in 2025? Are there still additive costs that are going into the SG&A line?

Steve Metzger, President

Just to clarify, John, you are asking if we're going to add personnel to support the supply chain focus?

John Franzreb, Analyst

Correct.

Steve Metzger, President

We do have plans. We think there's a lot of opportunities there. So we do have plans to add another individual to help drive and accelerate those opportunities. So at some point in 2025, we expect that to be the case.

John Franzreb, Analyst

Okay, so we anticipate an increase in SG&A costs. Understood. I have one final question regarding the expected debt paydown. Will most of that occur after the acquisition sale, or will there be regular debt repayments throughout the rest of the year?

Carlos Quezada, CEO

I'm struggling hearing your question. I think you're asking if we're going to allocate the proceeds from the divestitures this year to pay down our debt. Is that what you're asking?

John Franzreb, Analyst

Yes. Just looking at the timing of debt repayment and how we should think about it through the balance of the year.

Carlos Quezada, CEO

Yes. We've indicated over the last two years that our long-term range for the leverage ratio is 3.5x to 4x. We want to keep it like that. Short term, we do have a nice pipeline of opportunities for acquisitions. But until we have something in the books, any proceeds from divestitures will go to save interest expense for our facility. Then we'll use some of those proceeds once we're ready to close on some of those deals.

Steve Metzger, President

And John, just to circle back on your question regarding OpEx. We built all the additions into our expectations. Our commentary in regards to OpEx or our guidance already includes any additions we are contemplating.

Liam Burke, Analyst

Carlos, you had a higher average revenue per funeral contract in the quarter, but also a higher percentage of cremations in the mix. Typically, cremations are a lower revenue per contract. How are you able to have more cremation customers but higher revenue per contract?

Carlos Quezada, CEO

That's a great question, Liam. Over the past year, we have been focusing on what we refer to as the conversion ratio. This involves families who initially come in with the intention of a cremation, which for some may mean a direct cremation. By educating these families on the available options, we are able to encourage them to consider alternatives beyond a simple direct cremation. These alternatives could include a cremation with a full service, a cremation with an upgraded urn, or even a small gathering for a final goodbye. It might also involve memorialization options or a full visitation followed by a live celebration. We are putting considerable effort into the development of our teams, particularly our field directors, to ensure that they can present all available options to families. We believe that many families come in with a mindset toward cremation but may not fully understand what it entails or what choices are accessible to them. This has been our strategy for the past 10 months and will continue into 2025.

John Enwright, CFO

So it includes kind of the similar kind of ratio as you would think from prior years that preneed is going to kind of turn a little bit slower than in kind of funeral business. So ultimately, you could think about it discounting the transition from revenue into free cash flow.

Liam Burke, Analyst

Okay. So the preneed sales rate is going to be above or below this year's cadence or 2024 cadence?

John Enwright, CFO

The expectation, it will be kind of below this year's cadence, but it's still higher than the funeral revenue expectation.

George Kelly, Analyst

Just a couple of questions for me. First, on Trinity, I was curious if you could go through the expected timing of the various sort of functionality, what Trinity is bringing? Can you just walk us through when you expect to turn on that functionality?

Carlos Quezada, CEO

Yes, absolutely. Happy to do that, George. Over the last year, as you know, we've been working mostly on programming. But the last few months have been about testing, making sure that everything that's been done on the programming will work once we go live. There have been several iterations of that. As you know, any ERP implementation is very involved and quite challenging; you find surprises along the way. I don't think I've heard of one that goes 100% successfully to plan. However, we're pretty much at that point where we're going to go to a pilot of the program in the second quarter of this year, and then 30 to 60 days after that, depending on how that pilot goes, a full launch to rollout throughout the remainder of 2025 in every business, specifically funeral homes. Then we'll move into cemetery in the first quarter of 2026. We believe that Trinity will be quite a significant opportunity to maximize efficiency to improve our systems. It is not just an ERP; it will give us all the back office that we currently have with our legacy system, which we call CPI, which is pretty outdated today. It will enable us to do analytics, and it will allow us to bring AI into our accounting procedures and become more efficient with that. Reporting will become tremendously better. But most importantly, in addition to our compliance items, it contains a family portal. That's how we call it, the family portal. What that is, is a way to engage families from the moment they call the business to the moment they leave the funeral home or cemetery post-services. It is a way where they can see where they are in each step of the stage of the funeral or the cemetery. This will allow us to submit paperwork and documentation, and they can track every item within their services being provided. We're very excited about that because I don't believe that's currently available out there for families today, or at least from what I'm familiar with. From my point of view, I think we're the first ones to have something like that, and that will deliver a better experience to the families, and that should also deliver referrals, better experiences, better reviews, and potentially also better average, as we'll be able to present better to families our services and our products.

George Kelly, Analyst

Okay. That's really helpful context. And then second question on your guidance. So on your revenue guide, I'm a little confused. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that your guide reflects a low single-digit organic growth number. The confusion, I guess, is just why wouldn't it be higher? You just mentioned that January and February funeral volume was positive low single-digits. I would imagine there's pricing on top of that. And then your cemetery preneed, I'm guessing would be at a double-digit rate or close to it. So I'm just a little confused on what the disconnect is. What am I missing on your organic growth target?

John Enwright, CFO

So George, I mean, I know the low single digit is when you excluded the impact of the divestitures, right? That is part of the driver. But I think your question is why isn't the core business that is still here growing at a greater rate given the fact that January and February businesses have uptick compared to last year. But as Carlos indicated, that was low single-digits, 1% to 3% is the information he gave. From a cemetery perspective, our numbers might be a little bit lower than double digits right now as an expectation as we work through the year. So I think it might be around if you're looking at your model associated with what you have for cemetery.

Carlos Quezada, CEO

It's about 1% on the funeral side and about high single digits on the cemetery side.

George Kelly, Analyst

Are you implying that on the funeral side, two months of data is insufficient to establish a trend and you prefer to see how the year unfolds before becoming too optimistic? Is that the main concern, or will you face some difficult comparisons later in the year?

Carlos Quezada, CEO

No, I don't think it's a challenging comp. I do feel pretty confident where the pull forward is today for 2025. I do think we are at the end of it. But it is a fact that the flu season shifted from Q4 of last year to Q1 of this year; that's not sustainable. It will go away after Q1. I don't think that's going to create a trend in terms of volume for the rest of the year. While Q1 is looking better than we expected, it's 1% to 3% better on the volume side. I'm not speaking about revenue, just volume. It will be difficult to assume that's going to be the trend for the remaining year. As you have noticed, our style is to ensure that we commit to something we truly believe we can hit. Hopefully, we can exceed expectations and over-deliver what we promised. That's been our thesis of work and why we've been somewhat conservative with our guidance organically, given our pretty good 2024 performance.

Steve Metzger, President

It appears there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Carlos for any additional or closing remarks.

Carlos Quezada, CEO

Thank you, operator. As we conclude today's call, the key takeaway is that our 2024 results reflect our collective passion, innovation, and unwavering determination to achieve our strategic objectives as demonstrated by the impressive organic growth and a significant debt repayment accomplished last year. Carriage is set for an exciting and promising future. We are dedicated to creating premier experiences and concentrating on growth. We will continue to reach new heights and attain even greater success. Thank you. We look forward to speaking to you again when we report our first quarter performance. Have a fantastic day.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.