EBITDA(Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization)

EBITDA(Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization)

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Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization

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A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA,^[1] pronounced /iːbɪtˈdɑː/,^[2] /əˈbɪtdɑː/,^[3] or /ˈɛbɪtdɑː/^[4]) is computed by considering a company's earnings before interest payments, tax, depreciation, and amortization are subtracted for any final accounting of its income and expenses. The EBITDA of a business gives an indication of its current operational profitability, i.e., how much profit it makes with its present assets and its operations on the products it produces and sells.^{[citation needed]}
Although EBITDA is not a financial metric recognized in generally accepted accounting principles, it is widely used when assessing the performance of companies. It is intended to allow a comparison of profitability between different companies, by canceling the effects of interest payments from different forms of financing (by ignoring interest payments), political jurisdictions (by ignoring tax), collections of assets (by ignoring depreciation of assets), and different takeover histories (by ignoring amortization often stemming from goodwill).^{[citation needed]}
A negative EBITDA indicates that a business has fundamental problems with profitability. A positive EBITDA, on the other hand, does not necessarily mean that the business generates cash. This is because EBITDA ignores changes in Working Capital (usually needed when growing a business), capital expenditures (needed to replace assets that have broken down), taxes, and interest.^{[citation needed]}
Some analysts do not support omission of capital expenditures when evaluating the profitability of a company: capital expenditures are needed to maintain the asset base which in turn allows for profit. Warren Buffett famously asked: "Does management think the tooth fairy pays for capital expenditures?"^[5] Depreciation is often a very good approximation of the capital expenditures required to maintain the asset base, so it has been argued^{[citation needed]} that EBITA ("Earnings before Interest, Taxes and Amortization) would be a better indicator.^{[citation needed]}
EBITDA margin refers to EBITDA divided by total revenue (or "total output", "output" differing "revenue" by the changes in inventory).^{[citation needed]}

Contents

[hide]

• 1 Use
• 2 Misuse
• 3 See also
• 4 References
• 5 External links

Use[edit]

Apart from the use mentioned above, EBITDA is widely used in loan covenants, mostly in the following two metrics:^{[citation needed]}

1. Leverage: Debt/EBITDA. This metric measures the amount of debt in relation to the EBITDA (i.e., how does the debt relate to the operational profit generating ability of the company). Whilst there is no absolute target and whilst leverage ratios differ widely, it can probably be argued that a leverage >3 is unhealthy for most businesses.
2. Interest Cover: (EBITDA/Interest Expense). This metric measures the ability of a company to generate profit out of its operations to cover interest payments. Again, there is no absolute target for this value, as the ratio that is required obviously depends on taxes, working capital needs, capital expenditures and the repayment needs of the principal. However, it is clear that a ratio <1 for="" is="" li="" long.="" not="" sustainable="">

Misuse[edit]

EBITDA has increasingly become the key metric to show the "intrinsic operational performance" of the business, i.e., the performance when all costs that do not occur in the normal course of business (e.g., restructuring costs, ramp-up costs, consulting fees for special projects, special legal fees) are ignored. While this is helpful in general, it is often misused by declaring too many cost items as "one-offs" and thus boosting profitability. The resulting metric when such "non-normal" costs have been deducted should be called "adjusted EBITDA" or similar, but this "adjusted" nature is often not shown sufficiently clearly.^{[by whom?][citation needed]}
Because EBITDA (and its variations) are not measures generally accepted under U.S. GAAP, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires that companies registering securities with it (and when filing its periodic reports) reconcile EBITDA to net income in order to avoid misleading investors.^{[citation needed]}
In another attempt to boost EBITDA, some companies^{[examples needed]} have reverted to activate development efforts in the profit and loss statement. This effectively increases total output and hence increases EBITDA. Such development costs are then recorded as capital expenditures. Instead of EBITDA, a view on EBITA (as discussed above) would eliminate such an artifact.^{[citation needed]}

See also[edit]

• Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization, and Restructuring or Rent Costs (EBITDAR)
• Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), or operating profit
• EV/EBITDA
• Gross profit
• Net profit or Net income
• OIBDA
• Operating margin
• P/E ratio
• Revenue

References[edit]

1. Jump up ^ "EBITDA - Financial Glossary". Reuters. 2009-10-15. Retrieved 2012-02-09.
2. Jump up ^ Professional English in Use Finance, Cambridge University Press
3. Jump up ^ "Pronunciation of ebitda - how to pronounce ebitda correctly". Howjsay.com. 2006-10-29. Retrieved 2012-01-21.
4. Jump up ^ "EBITDA - alphaDictionary * Free English On-line Dictionary". Alphadictionary.com. 2001-05-03. Retrieved 2012-01-22.
5. Jump up ^ "Top Five Reasons Why EBITDA Is A Great Big Lie". Forbes. 2011-12-28. Retrieved 2012-11-15.

External links[edit]

• Investopedia definition of EBITDA

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Categories:

• Generally Accepted Accounting Principles
• Fundamental analysis
• Private equity