A third trading update in less than two months was issued by Dignity yesterday (Alex Ralph writes). Investors gathering in Birmingham for the annual shareholder meeting would have been relieved to find there were no fresh revelations after a series of alarming updates over the winter. The recent spate of trading updates have gone some way to steadying frayed nerves after a double whammy of profit warnings in November and January, which by February had sent shares to their lowest in nine years.
Dignity is one of Britain’s biggest funeral providers, alongside the
Co-op; they have 28 per cent of the market between them. It conducted 68,800 funerals last year across its 826 locations trading under local family names.
Its dominance, built up through buying