EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization)

A corporate income statement item that measures a company's total sales minus such items as operating expenses before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Because companies such as cellular, paging and PCS carriers often begin operations with huge capital debt, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, debt and amortization) is considered a better gauge of their financial performance than net income, which can be difficult to compare against other companies that do not have similarly large start-up capital requirements. (Cingular)