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Report of Independent Accountants |
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To the Board of Directors and Shareholders of Stewart Enterprises, Inc. : In our opinion, the accompanying consolidated balance sheets and the related consolidated statements of earnings, shareholders' equity and cash flows present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of Stewart Enterprises, Inc. and Subsidiaries at October 31, 1999 and 1998, and the results of their operations and their cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended October 31, 1999, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company's management; our responsibility is to express an opinion on these financial statements based on our audits. We conducted our audits of these statements in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States, which require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement. An audit includes examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements, assessing the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, and evaluating the overall financial statement presentation. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for the opinion expressed above. As described in Note 3 to the financial statements, the Company changed its method of accounting for funeral services investment trust fund earnings in 1999 and its method of accounting for cemetery sales and funeral services investment trust fund earnings in 1997.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP |