NewBridge Group Advises Seller and Buyer in Vermont Funeral Home Transaction
BENNINGTON, VT – JANUARY 2021 NewBridge recently advised Rollings Funeral Service (Rollings) on the successful acquisition of Shea Funeral Homes’ four locations in the Bennington, VT area. These funeral homes are located in Southern Vermont and include Hanson-Walbridge & Shea Funeral & Cremation Service (Bennington & Arlington, VT), Brewster & Shea Funeral & Cremation Service (Manchester, VT) and Covey, Allen & Shea Funeral & Cremation Service (Wilmington, VT).
Greg Rollings commented “Mark and Lisa Shea have a wonderful history of quality service to the families in the Southern Vermont region. Corporate has come to Vermont and failed, leaving a nice opportunity for a regional firm like Rollings to partner with independent, well run family funeral homes. Shea funeral homes exemplifies this.” This marks Rollings first acquisition in Vermont.
Mark Shea was attracted to the Rollings family due to the comfort he was given by The NewBridge Group. Mark comments “NewBridge has a longstanding relationship with Greg Rollings, shared a bit about his style and culture, and Lisa and I envisioned this as a nice pathway to retirement. Todd Reich, Tony Kumming, and Lisa Elliot provided us with a valuation free of charge to help us understand not only what purchase price range we could expect, but also what type of offer structure (cash up front) we could expect to receive. They also explained that every Rollings transaction is different but asked us what our ideal role would be post acquisition and explained how this might fit in with Rollings’ strategy. We felt no pressure to force a sale and did not owe NewBridge a fee. Ultimately, the value range was in the ballpark, we had an initial Zoom call with Greg Rollings, where we hit it off. We found out that we each have young grandchildren, each have experience working on enucleation, and that Greg’s son is a firefighter, as am I part-time. Greg then flew up to Vermont to meet us in person, tour the facilities and took us to dinner. This further increased our trust and comfort level that he would take care of the Shea brand, and most importantly our family of staff”.
NewBridge continues to seek independent and family-owned funeral homes in the Northeast and throughout the U.S. who are considering a sale.