Profile: Service Corporation International (SCI.N)

Service Corporation International (SCI), incorporated in July 1962, is a provider of deathcare products and services, with a network of funeral homes and cemeteries. The Company operates through two business segments: funeral and cemetery. SCI conducts both funeral and cemetery operations in the United States and Canada, and funeral operations in Germany. As of December 31, 2008, the Company operated 1,302 funeral service locations and 369 cemeteries (including 208 combination locations) in North America, which is geographically diversified across 43 states, eight Canadian provinces, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The funeral segment also includes the operations of 12 funeral homes in Germany.

The Company’s funeral service and cemetery operations consist of funeral service locations, cemeteries, funeral service/cemetery combination locations, crematoria and related businesses. SCI provides all professional services relating to funerals and cremations, including the use of funeral facilities and motor vehicles, and preparation and embalming services. Funeral-related merchandise, including caskets, burial vaults, cremation receptacles, flowers, and other ancillary products and services, is sold at funeral service locations. Its cemeteries provide cemetery property interment rights, including mausoleum spaces, lots and lawn crypts, and sells cemetery related merchandise and services, including stone and bronze memorials, burial vaults, casket and cremation memorialization products, merchandise installations, and burial openings and closings. The Company also sells preneed funeral and cemetery preneed products and services, whereby a customer contractually agrees to the terms of certain products and services to be delivered and performed in the future.

Funeral service/cemetery combination locations are those businesses, in which a funeral service location is physically located within or adjoining a cemetery owned by the Company. Combination locations allow certain facility, personnel and equipment costs to be shared between the funeral service location and cemetery. With the acquisition of Alderwoods Group, Inc., the Company acquired Rose Hills, which a combination operation in the United States, performing approximately 5,000 funeral services and 8,500 interments per annum. SCI’s operations in the United States and Canada are organized into 37 major markets and 45 middle markets (including eight Hispana markets). As of December 31, 2008, the Company owned approximately 91% of the real estate and buildings used at its facilities, and the remainder of the facilities were leased. At December 31, 2008, SCI’s 369 cemeteries contained a total of approximately 26,007 acres, of which approximately 63% was developed.