Pure Cremation

Cavendish is pleased to announce that, following the exchange earlier in the year, the sale of Pure Cremation to Epiris Fund III has completed.

Cavendish originated the transaction, ran a competitive sale process and acted as sole adviser to the Pure Cremation shareholders.

Pure Cremation is the leading provider of prepaid, trust and insurance backed funeral plans in the UK, allowing people to plan and pay for their own end-of-life arrangements and thus relieve their families of the stress and expense of doing so. Pure is also a pioneer of the market for direct cremations, which are simple, unattended cremations without a contemporaneous funeral service and thus a low-cost alternative to a traditional funeral allowing a deceased person’s family and friends to mark their loss at a time and place of their choosing.

Pure Cremation was wholly owned by Bryan and Catherine Powell (founders), Richard Thomerson (Chairman) and Rob Murphy (CFO). Industry veteran Dean Lamble, formerly CEO of SunLife Insurance, has joined Pure as its Group Chief Executive.

The lead advisers on the transaction were Jonathan Buxton and Ben Goldring.

Jonathan Buxton Partner at Cavendish, commented:

“It has been a pleasure working with Bryan, Catherine, Richard, Rob, and the team at Pure. They have ruffled feathers in a stagnating sector by creating a major new D2C brand that is now the UK’s leading prepaid funeral plan provider. It will be exciting to watch as Pure moves onto the next chapter with Dean and Epiris.”

Ben Goldring, Partner and Head of Financial Services at Cavendish, commented:

“Pure operates as a data-driven, D2C consumer fintech and continues to disrupt its chosen market in late-life financial planning. The recent FCA regulation in prepaid, trust and insurance-backed plans will no doubt spur additional investment and consolidation in this space and Pure is very well placed to continue to scale and innovate in late-life planning products. I look forward to watching their continued success.”