Going To Market: Funeral Home Company Says It's Time For A Sale
08-10-1995 Times Picayune

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Security Industrial Companies, one of the biggest cemetery and
funeral home companies in the area, is on the market. The
company is shopping for a buyer for its 15 funeral homes, two
cemeteries and two insureance companies concentrated in the New
Orleans area.

Security's holdings include the Jacob Schoen & Sons and Tharp-
Sontheimer funeral home groups, the 61-acre Garden of Memories
cemetery in Metairie, Key Floral Ltd. and New Orleans Limousine
Service Inc.

Security Industrial Cos., the parent corporation, also owns two
insurance companies, Security Industrial Life and Security
Industrial Fire Co.

Last year, revenue hit $74 million at Security, which is based
in donaldsonville.

Company founder and CEO E.J. Ourso announced Wednesday he is
selling the company after 47 years in the business. "There have
been suitors before, but the market said this was the time," he
said.

Security Industrial Cos. handled 4,000 funerals and 1,000
interments last year. It is the second-largest local furneral
home chain behind Stewart Enterprises, one of the giants
nationwide in the $8 billion per-year death care business.

Ourso is selling the entire Security Industrial company but will
keep four funeral homes in donaldsonville. LSG Advisors in new
York, a division of Societe Generale Securities Corp., a French
securities firm, is handlling the sale. Ourso said potential
buyers include other companies in the funeral home and cemetery
industry, insurance companies and private persons seeking
investments. He would not speculate on how much the chain could
sell for.

Security Industrial's funeral operations, including floral and
limousine services and two cemeteries, earned $17.7 million in
1994.

The bulk of the company's revenue came from the insurance
division. Security Industrial Fire Co. primarily writes fire and
extended coverage for homes in Louisiana. Security Industrial
Life offers the Security Plan, a type of insurance policy to pay
for funerals in advance. More than 500 agents work for the
company statewide, visiting customers at their homes to collect
premiums for funeral services. Together the companies have $1
billion in insurance in force.

Ourso started with a funeral home in Donaldsonville foounded by
his father, sidney, in 1938. Seven years later, the elder Ourso
died and E.J. took over the business.

Ourso and his wife, Marjory, expanded into the insurance
business in 1948 with $10,000,

Over the years Ourso has made 56 acquistions and sales,
stringing together the Tharpsontheimer group of funeral homes
along with the jacob Schoen Group, bultman Mortuary Service and
McMahon-Coburn funeral homes.

Security Industrial recently acquired the life insurance
business of Trans-World Life Insurance Co. of shreveport.

With the proposed sale of Security, Ourso is essentially selling
all he has acquired over the years, although he'll remain in the
death care business. With his nephew, Ciff Ourso, he will
continue to operate the four funeral homes in donaldsonville
that are not for sale.

but the security Industrial sale will give him time to relax.
asked where he lives, Ourso said, "On I-10" - shuttlling between
an apartment in New Orleans, a family home in Donaldsonville and
offices and properties in between.

"I'm 72 now," Ourso said. "It's time to slow down."