Understanding EBITDA – Definition, Formula & Calculation

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Justin Muscolino

Speaker: Justin Muscolino

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Banking and Finance Webinar Image
Date
02 December, 2025 (Tuesday)
Time
12:00 PM PDT | 03:00 PM EDT
Duration
60 Minutes

Overview

EBITDA stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization, and is a core financial metric used to measure a company’s operating performance. It strips out the effects of financing decisions, tax environments, and non-cash expenses to provide a clearer view of profitability from core operations.
While widely used across industries for evaluating company health and comparing performance, EBITDA is often misunderstood or incorrectly applied. Many professionals see it as a quick shorthand for cash flow or earnings, without understanding how it’s built or what it excludes. That can lead to poor forecasting, incorrect valuations, and miscommunication with investors or leadership.
This session is designed to teach the basics of EBITDA, including its definition, purpose, components, and how to accurately calculate it. It’s an essential foundation for anyone working in finance, accounting, management, or business analysis.

You can’t rely on a number you don’t fully understand. If you’re working with financial reports, evaluating business performance, or involved in budgeting and forecasting, understanding EBITDA is critical. Misinterpreting it could mean overestimating profitability or missing signs of financial stress.
This session breaks down EBITDA in simple, clear terms. You’ll learn how to define it, calculate it from a company’s income statement, and apply it appropriately. Whether you’re new to finance or brushing up on the basics, this session will give you the confidence to use EBITDA accurately in reports, presentations, and decision-making.
 

Why Should You Attend

EBITDA is one of the most commonly used financial metrics in business—but also one of the most misunderstood. Standing for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization, EBITDA is often seen as a proxy for a company’s ability to generate profits from operations, free from the effects of financing and accounting decisions.
This session will provide a step-by-step walkthrough of what EBITDA is, how to calculate it, and why it matters. You’ll start with the definition of EBITDA and an explanation of each component it excludes. We’ll explain why companies, investors, and analysts often use EBITDA to compare operational performance across businesses with different capital structures, tax rates, or asset bases.
Next, we’ll dive into the formulas used to calculate EBITDA, both from the top-down and bottom-up approach. Using sample income statements, we’ll show how to extract the necessary values and compute EBITDA manually—so that you understand what goes into the number and how to avoid mistakes.
 

Who Will Benefit?

  • All levels

Speaker

Justin brings over 20 years of wide-ranging experience in compliance, training, and regulation in the financial services sector. Most recently, he served as Head of Compliance Training at Bank of China, where he led the compliance training function and created and monitored the annual training plan through a thorough training needs analysis. Previously, he served as Macquarie Group’s Head of Americas Compliance Training and J.P. Morgan Chase’s compliance training manager. He also worked for FINRA, a US regulator, where he created Examiner University to train examiners on how to perform their function.

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