Talk:Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 July 2020 and 14 August 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aaronlai23.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 May 2020 and 3 July 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jiayu Xu.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 19:59, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Easy analogy

As I teach ebitda in my accounting class, I often use the following analogy, which I would like someone to be bold and steal from me into this article and elsewhere... ;) When discussing what the ebitda means and what it doesn't mean, I always use the rhetorical question, "When was the last time you told someone your net income?" Everyone tells their friends their ebitda, their gross, because it allows you more social clout. Anyway... --Mrcolj 01:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Nov 06

I'm firmly in the accrual accounting camp, so I think this page is one-sided. Since the section removed (below) was clearly a response to this, and it was deleted, I'll ask you guys first before making any corrections. I have no problems with these pages presenting POVs. I think I can counter anything you present. Nor do I quibble about references. But I am not going to waste my time if it will only be promptly deleted because you don't like a word. So ?????Retail Investor 22:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Do it. Or if you're hesitant, make changes here first... I'll back you. --Mrcolj 01:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. I tried to be fair to both sides even though I think EBITDA is wrong, wrong, wrong!Retail Investor 20:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Aug 05

I recently removed the following section. It might merit restoration but it had some important flaws that made me decide to remove it pending further editing. Here is my reasoning:

• "The most important metric for investors is the company's income" is incorrect. You could argue that it is an important metric, or that it is considered by some to be the most important metric. However, there are many ways in which the net income measure misrepresents the financial health of a company. Further, no one ever retired because they had put so much "net income" in the bank. Since it's ultimately cash that we all earn, save and spend, many argue that cash flow is the most important metric for investors. Indeed, modern valuation practice is based on the projection of a company's future free cash flows (not profits) and estimation of the present value of those cash flows based on the time value of money.

• EBITDA is clearly NOT the same thing as "operating cash flow". For example, if a company increases its inventories by $100M in a period, its operating cash flow will be reduced by $100M, but there will be no impact on EBITDA.

• It is exactly wrong to say that "amortization ... costs money". A primary reason to consider earnings without the impact of amortization is that it costs nothing. It reflects an expenditure made in a prior year -- all of the money has already been spent, but in order to match the impact of that expenditure to all of the years in which it will create value for the company, an expense is "artificially" recorded in subsequent years.

==Discussion
When companies publish their financial statements, the most important metric for   
investors is the company's income, which is calculated as the company's revenue 
minus all its expenses. Some companies also publish their EBITDA, which, these 
companies usually claim, provides a more true picture of the company's profitability than 
the "income" number.

The EBITDA is the earnings before cash expenses of interest income/expense and income tax, 
and non-cash expenses of depreciation and amortization of capital expenditures. So 
it's the same thing as the operating cash flow (from the cash flow statement) 
without cash outflow from interest and taxes. But there is a reason the interest, 
amortization, and taxes is on the income statment, because it cost money. The issue is 
however not the "net net" cash and income from the company, but comparable numbers. 
Management compare all levels of income and cash flow to earlier periods. And a favorite 
may be the EBITDA.

• I linked the terms "accrual accounting" and "cash basis accounting" to the relevant pages.DanG 08:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Article needs serious help

This article needs serious help. There's no clear definition and example of EBIT for the uninformed, and most of the article seems dedicated to pros and cons. How about calling them strengths and weaknesses? NPOV comes to mind. --SueHay 19:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Although not a specialist in this subject it is close to my heart as it is the prefered metric used for the basic valuation of small privet companies, in the UK at least. As a first assesment a multiplier of 5 - 10 times EBITDA is used a rough cut cut valuation, prior to the arm wrastling commencing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Supertyke (talk • contribs) 16:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Another problem with EBITDA

It is not clear whether or not EBITDA includes or excludes interest income earned on cash and marketable securities. I believe EBITDA should exclude interest income (earned on cash) and interest expense (paid on debt), but the definition varies by user. Interest income (earned on cash and marketable securities) is usually non-operational (meaning the cash flow was not generated by a firm's core operations - its business) and therefore should not be included in EBITDA. EBITDA should measure earnings generated by a company's core operations.

EBIT v EBITDA

Could someone write a simple text to differenciate between the two? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.6.25.118 (talk) 10:38, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) is a company's net income before income tax expense and interest expenses are deducted. EBIT is used to analyze the performance of a company's core operations without the costs of the capital structure and tax expenses impacting profit. Aaronlai23 (talk)

Criticism of EBITDA

The controversies around this term should be integrated in the article. Here are some examples [1] MaxPont (talk) 08:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Use by Private Equity investors

100 shares is an unnecessary modifier. The use of the term "retail investor" already indicates a non-institutional or significant investor and the use of the specific number, 100, implies that some other number might have use of EBITDA.Es330td (talk) 19:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

New appraoch

I rewrote the article and attempted to make it more concise and more helpful. Particularly tried to work out "what it does tell you" and "what it does not tell you" and "how it is misused". Hope I achieved those goals a little bit while keeping it reasonable short. Jaeljojo (talk) 15:19, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks - I think an example would also be most helpful. I will give it a shot when I have a moment. Hopefully. 82.16.153.183 (talk) 09:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Requested move 26 December 2014

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. The arguments are against, and there has been no chat for a long time. (non-admin closure)  — Amakuru (talk) 11:52, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

---

• Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization → EBITDA
• Earnings before interest and taxes → EBIT (accounting)
• Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and restructuring or rent costs → EBITDAR
• Operating income before depreciation and amortization → OIBDA

– Per WP:COMMONNAME. Given the unwieldy nature of the full names, the acronyms are widely used as the primary name of these terms. This is the case both in the articles and in scholarly works and the media. Similar to EV/EBITDA, which we don't spell out for the same reason. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment given the inexplicable nature of the acronyms, do we have to? GregKaye ✍♪ 02:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose – we normally avoid acronyms except where they are very well known, like FBI. These are not. Dicklyon (talk) 07:49, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi GregKaye and Dicklyon, EBITDA and EBIT are possibly the most commonly used and well known acronyms in finance (and EBITDAR and OIBDA are derivates of these). EBITDA gets >100,000 googlebooks hits vs. 74,000 for the spelt out version, and EBIT gets >150,000 vs 21,000 for the spelt out version. The books always use the acronym first, then note the long version in brackets or a footnote, and then revert back to the acronym (a couple of examples are [2] and [3]). Oncenawhile (talk) 23:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not saying that it's obscure, or uncommon, or not useful. It's just not a good title. Dicklyon (talk) 23:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Oncenawhile, even Dicklyon's FBI redirects to Federal Bureau of Investigation, GregKaye 04:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.