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

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) is a metric that measures a company's profitability by ignoring debt, taxes and non-cash charges like depreciation and amortization. It shows how much cash a business is generating and is not required for publicly listed companies.

Depreciation is the practice of spreading out the cost of a physical asset over its lifetime while amortization is the same concept for non-physical assets. EBITDA is not a universally accepted metric and can vary between businesses.