程阳：博彩业与EBITDA

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What is EBITDA?

If analyzing the financial strength of a company were easy, then we'd all be named Warren Buffett. Instead, investors must dig through a mound of financial data and indicators that are not only confusing, but often conflicting. Sometimes the very same quarterly earnings report will paint two very different pictures of a company's performance based on competing calculations. As investors, which one of those calculations should we believe?

Depending on whom you ask, a revenue calculation called EBITDA is either an excellent way to compare the financial strength of two companies or nothing more than a cheap accounting trick. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between. EBITDA stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. But before we get into the details of EBITDA, let's cover the some accounting basics first.

The standard method for calculating a company's profit is to figure out its net income. The simple definition of net income is gross revenue (every dollar the company earns) minus expenses (every dollar the company spends). When we think of expenses, we typically think of the cost of raw materials, manufacturing costs, rent on office space, employee salaries and other tangible costs of running a business. But companies have lots of ways of spending money. When a company borrows money, it must pay interest on those loans. In addition, the vast majority of companies pay taxes, and most companies use accounting principles like depreciation and amortization to spread the expense of big-ticket items over time.

According to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), the standard way of calculating net income (revenue minus expenses) is the only way. But in the 1980s, a new breed of companies specializing in leveraged buyouts (an especially risky type of hostile takeover) began popularizing the use of EBITDA as a more accurate measure of long-term profitability [source: Investopedia]. The argument is that EBITDA -- by ignoring expenses like interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- strips away all of the costs that aren't directly related to the core operations of a company. What is left, say the supporters of EBITDA, is a purer measure of a company's ability to make money.

The truth is that EBITDA, if used to make "apple-to-apple" comparisons of two traditional business (like manufacturing or retail), can be very helpful [source: Smith]. EBITDA reduces the financial noise down to a single number that represents ongoing income from a company's core business operations. The problem, as we'll discuss on the next page, is that EBITDA has a history of being used by high-risk, non-traditional businesses to take a bad investment and paint it gold.

The Problems with EBITDA

One of the main problems with EBITDA is that some companies try to use it as a substitute for cash flow [source: McCaffrey]. Cash flow not only indicates how much a company earned and how much it spent, but when the cash actually changed hands. This is an important distinction because earnings and cash earnings aren't the same thing. If a company spends cash to make a product, but the product sits in a warehouse for a year before a consumer actually pays for it, then the company may not have enough cash on hand to pay its creditors and run its daily operations. This could lead to further debt and even bankruptcy.

On the surface, EBITDA looks a lot like cash flow because it focuses exclusively on money earned from the daily operation of the business. But the truth is that earnings and cash flow are calculated using two completely different accounting methods. Accrual accounting counts a sale as soon as the product ships to the retailer. Cash accounting counts a sale only when the retailer pays for the order in full. Since EBITDA is based on accrual accounting figures, it doesn't accurately represent cash that the company has collected -- just what it has earned on paper [source: Wayman].

Another reason that EBITDA is a bad indicator of cash earnings is because the real cash flow of a company is directly affected by two of the things that EBITDA ignores: interest and taxes [source: Weiss]. Companies must pay interest and they must pay taxes (before they can even pay dividends to investors) and that cash has to come from somewhere.

EBITDA also ignores depreciation and amortization, two accounting methods used to spread out the expense of large capital investments. For a young company, these capital investments can be considerable; critics of EBITDA say that ignoring the long-term financial impact of such investments is dangerous [source: McClure].

But at the end of the day, many analysts and investors have soured on EBITDA simply because the numbers are so easy to fudge [source: Smith]. Unfortunately, EBITDA has been used by too many dangerously leveraged companies -- including those infamous dotcom flameouts -- to skirt GAAP standards and fool unsuspecting investors, earning it a bad reputation on Wall Street.

EBITDA（Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization，税息折旧及摊销前利润，简称EBITDA）

EBITDA定义

EBITDA是Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization的缩写，即未计利息、税项、折旧及摊销前的利润水平。 这个数据大致反映了企业在正常营运所赚取的现金利润，因为折旧和摊销皆不属现金流出的支出项目。而利息是反映企业倚赖借贷的程度，税项则反映了企业在税务安排上能否达到一个有效率的地步。部分情形下欠准确故此，依理而言，EBITDA跟除税后盈利愈接近的话，则显示企业在利息、税项、折旧、摊销方面的开支愈低，应被视为一个正面信号。这亦反映企业并没有大额的非流动资产或无形资产需予折旧及摊销及处于一个低的借贷水平。

EBITDA的计算公式：

净销售量

- 营业费用

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营业利润（EBIT）

+ 折旧费用

+ 摊销费用

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EBITDA

EBITDA的运用

最初私人资本公司运用EBITDA，而不考虑利息、税项、折旧及摊销，是因为他们要用自己认为更精确的数字来代替他们， 他们移除利息和税项，是因为他们要用自己的税率计算方法以及新的资本结构下的财务成本算法。 摊销费用被排除在外，是因为它衡量的是前期获得的无形资产，而不是本期现金开支。 折旧是对资本支出的非直接的回顾，也被排除在外，并被一个未来资本开支的估算值所代替。 后来，许多上市公司、分析师以及媒体记者亦纷纷怂恿投资人用EBITDA去衡量上市公司的现金情况。 EBITDA常被拿来和现金流比较，因为它和净收入之间的差距就是两项对现金流没有影响的开支项目， 即折旧和摊销。

为什么EBITDA会误入歧途？

但实际上，EBITDA这个数据也存有不少不足之处。

1、  它排除了利息和税项，但它们却是真实的现金开支项目，而并非总是可选的， 一个公司必须支付它的税款和贷款。 它并没有将所有的非现金项目都排除在外。 只有折旧和摊销被排除掉了， EBITDA中没有调整地非现金项目还有备抵坏账、计提存货减值和股票期权成本。

2、  不同于现金流对营运资本的准确量度，EBITDA忽略了营运资本的变化情况。 例如，营运资本的额外投资就意味着消耗现金。 最后，EBITDA的最大缺点反映在“E”上，即利润项上。 如果一家上市公司保修成本、重构开支以及备抵坏账的准备金不足或超支，那么它的利润项都会发生变化倾斜。 在这样的情况下，企业就很容易被EBITDA导入歧途。 如果它过早地报告经营收入，或是将一些普通成本视作资本投入，那么EBITDA报告的利润结果也是值得可疑的。 如果它通过资本来回交易的方式膨胀收入，这种情况下，EBITDA报告的利润结果就一点价值也没有了。

3、  首先，企业提供的EBITDA数据多以集团的综合水平来计算。这个综合水平是包涵了少数股东权益在内，财务报表使用者较难清楚理解哪些EBITDA部分最终是属于集团的、哪些部分最终是属于少数股东的。倘若集团规模较大，非全资拥有的附属公司数量亦多兼且支出项目分配比例较为迥异的话，EBITDA的显示意义便会有欠准确了。

4、  其次，EBITDA并不是一个真正反映现金流的数据，表面来看，它是把一些没有现金流流出的支出项目剔除，但它又是无法反映一些流动资产和负债（如货存、应付帐款等）的现金流转变。和除税后盈利一样，EBITDA并不能清楚告诉财务报表使用者，企业是否有净现金流入。若需理解有关的事情，还需掀一下现金流量表。