Golden Haven expands deathcare services

MANILA, Philippines -  Villar-led Golden Haven Memorial Park Inc. is close to reaching its goal of being the first complete and full-service deathcare company in the country.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, Golden Haven said it recently opened its first memorial chapel and crematorium complex in the Ezekiel complex in Las Piñas.

According to Golden Haven, the new memorial park and crematorium complex features 12 chapel viewing rooms, with linked family rooms and two state-of-art crematory machines with pollution-control systems installed to ensure minimized emissions.

The new crematorium complex adds to the wide range of memorial services featured by the Ezekiel complex in Las Piñas. Among the offered services are embalming, cleansing, dressing and cosmetic restoration, and chapels for the traditional wake periods before burial or cremation.

It also offers limousine and hearse services for the transport of the casket to the internment site, and as well as the sale of deathcare products including floral arrangements, caskets, urns, keepsakes and other products.

Golden Haven COO Maribeth Tolentino said the opening of its first chapel and crematorium brings the company one step closer to catering to the five segments of the deathcare industry.

“Not only does this open a new chapter in the Golden Haven story, this chapel and crematorium opening also creates a new opportunity for us to increase our recurring income prospects,” Tolentino said.

Last year, the memorial park developer identified the five segments of the deathcare industry it planned to enter. These include memorial parks, memorial chapels and services, columbariums, deathcare merchandising (caskets, urns and keepsakes) and pre-need planning.

“The chapel we opened is just the first of a chain of memorial chapels that we are looking to open in various locations around the country where we see a growing yet underserved market for cremation,” said Golden Haven majority shareholder Manuel Villar.

Last November, Villar said the company was looking to have 50 memorial parks in operation in three years by opening 12 new parks annually.