Memoria expands with NatWest funding
Crematorium operator, Memoria Ltd, has secured £20m of support from NatWest to fund its rapid expansion programme.
The company currently operates eight crematoria across England and Wales; from Cardiff and Glamorgan in the west, to Waveney, Suffolk, in the east. Five of these have been opened since the beginning of 2015, while there are plans for additional facilities in the offing.
A family-owned business, Memoria Ltd was founded in 2003 by chief executive officer, Howard Hodgson, and chairman and finance director, Michael Hackney. Business development director and head of planning, Jamieson Hodgson, joined the company from Accenture in 2009. The three directors have a combined 88 years of funeral service experience.
Michael Hackney said: “Our aim is to provide exceptional standards of service and modern community facilities for bereaved families – the least they deserve at such a stressful time. In some areas, families can wait for as long as four weeks for a funeral service, a problem we are seeking to address with our active programme of new-build crematoria across the country.”
Howard Hodgson added: “This funding package from NatWest is helping us to expand our state-of-the-art facilities to cover every region of the UK. Not only will we well serve the traditional funeral market; but also our low-cost direct cremation business, which has grown dramatically in the last 12 months to represent over 12% of our business so far in 2017.”
Gary Johnson, relationship director at NatWest, Milton Keynes, commented: “Memoria Ltd is a growing company, offering an important service to local communities across England and Wales. We have provided funding to get a number of its facilities up and running and are proud to support a business which places such an emphasis on care and quality for its customers.”
