Funerals giant Dignity cuts loss by almost £300m after quitting London Stock Exchange

Funerals giant Dignity dramatically cut its pre-tax loss by almost £300m in the year it quit the London Stock Exchange, it has been revealed.

The Sutton Coldfield-headquartered group, which delisted in May last year, has reported a pre-tax loss of £42.1m for 2023 having lost £327.9m in 2022.

Newly-filed documents with Companies House also show that Dignity’s revenue increased slightly over the same 12 months from £323.1m to £329.7m.

Dignity, which was established in 1994, listed on the London Stock Exchange ten years later but announced a £281m cash offer to sell itself to a group of investors in January 2023.

Dignity generated a revenue of £242.9m from funerals, a slight increase from £241.2m in 2022, while its crematoria turnover rose from £81.9m to £86.8m.

During the year the average number of people Dignity employed fell from 3,575 to 3,493.

Dignity updates prices after takeover

A statement signed off by the board said: “Following the takeover of the group, the board is now more focussed on more traditional measures to understand the performance of the business, together with the perfjoamcne under the group’s covenant reporting. Underlying performance measures are no longer required.”

Dignity added: “Action has been taken to make improvements across pricing and cost management.

“This included [a] review of all pricing at a local market level to ensure they reflect the cost to service funerals whilst remaining competitive.

“This resulted in an overall price increase following a period of heightened cost inflation since the last pricing review.

“These actions will take time to come through the financial results and begin to benefit performance in 2024.”

Dignity added that it taken steps to “optimise” its capital structure through consents with bondholders either to repay the bond in full at a discount on par or to repay a minimum of £70m by the end of 2024.

That deal would be in exchange for reinstatement of the covenant waiver, for a maximum period of 15 months to 31 March, 2025.