Joe Redling, StoneMor’s President and Chief Executive Officer said, “Our second quarter results reflect continued pressure onpre-need production as our sales force adjusts to initiatives we launched in the first quarter of 2019. We believe we have identified the primary drivers of our sales productivity andpre-need sales issues. While our initiatives are in the early stages, we remain focused on improving our sales process and training, and optimizing staffing levels across our asset base.
“We are also beginning to see early signs of improvement in sales production with a strong sequential rebound of net interment rights sold andpre-need contracts written from the first quarter of 2019 to the current quarter. At the same time, we saw a reduction in corporate overhead net ofnon-recurring expenses on a year-over-year basis. As we have previously disclosed, we’ve targeted a minimum of $30 million of cost reductions across corporate, G&A, sales and field operations. After a careful review of labor efficiencies across our properties, at the beginning of July 2019, we implemented a reduction of approximately 6% of our field workforce as part of these cost reduction initiatives.
“The June 27, 2019 announcement of the closing of our $447.5 million recapitalization not only represented a major step in providing us with a meaningful liquidity improvement to execute our turnaround strategy, but also demonstrated both the strong underlying value of our asset base as well as investor confidence in our management team’s ability to execute our turnaround plan, including the next phase of our performance improvement plans.”
Garry Herdler, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer added, “Inmid-April 2019, we outlined our turnaround strategy focused on four key goals: cash flow and liquidity, capital structure, balance sheet/portfolio review, and performance improvement through cost reductions and revenue enhancement. Our results reflect the efforts of our initial100-day plan, which included significant progress on improving liquidity and capital structure. We believe we have identified additional expense reduction opportunities in the next phase of this operational turnaround strategy.
“We continue to work towards process improvements to better align our cost structure with our revenues and performance improvement efforts. These efforts and the contemplatedC-Corporation conversion are important steps to revitalizing our business and positioning us for future success. Since joining the team and gaining a better understanding of StoneMor’s business, I am more confident in the execution plans we are developing for the next phase of our turnaround plan to address ournear-in challenges and opportunities, with the commitment to set a clear strategic roadmap for the future.”
Updated Unit Count
As of June 30, 2019, the Partnership had 39.53 million units outstanding. As part of the debt and equity recapitalization, the Partnership issued 52.08 million of Series A Preferred units which are convertible to common units on a 1:1 basis (subject to anti-dilution adjustments) no later than upon the completion of the previously announcedC-Corporation conversion. The outstanding unit count at June 30, 2019, pro forma for the recapitalization transactions, was 91.62 million units.
In connection with theC-Corporation conversion, and as previously disclosed, StoneMor anticipates issuing an additional 2.95 million common units. Pro forma outstanding unit count as of June 30, 2019, after giving effect to the matters noted above and theC-Corporation conversion is expected to be approximately 94.57 million units.
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