CVST (Covista Communications) EBITDA: $0.47 Mil (TTM As of Apr. 2005)

Covista Communications  (OTCPK:CVST) EBITDA Explanation

EBITDA is a cash flow measure that ignores changes in working capital. EBITDA minus Depreciation, and Amortization (DA) equals Operating Income. Operating Income is profit before interest and taxes. Of course, Interest and taxes need to be paid.

While depreciation and amortization expenses do not need to be paid in cash, assets - especially tangible assets - do need to be replaced over time. EBITDA is not a measure of profit in any sense. EBITDA is a measure of cash generation by a business where the uses of that cash may be more or less discretionary depending on the nature of the business.

The EBITDA of a TV station is largely discretionary. Owners may use much of the EBITDA generated by a TV station as they see fit. The EBITDA of a railroad is largely non-discretionary. Owners must use much of the EBITDA generated by a railroad to replace the physical assets of the railroad or the business will literally fall apart over time.

EBITDA can be thought of as the cash a business generates that is available to:

EBITDA is widely used in financial analysis because Depreciation and Amortization are not present day cash expenses.. Depreciation and amortization are the spreading out of the costs of assets over the time in which those assets provide benefits. Today's depreciation and amortization expenses relate to assets bought in the past. The assets being expensed may or may not need to be replaced in the future. And the cost to replace the assets may be more or less than it was in the past. For this reason, the depreciation and amortization expenses a company records in the present year may have no relationship to the actual cash costs needed to maintain its assets in future years.

A company's depreciation expense depends on both its expectations about the assets it owns and its choice of accounting methods. Two companies owning identical assets may have different depreciation expenses because they have different expectations about the useful lives of those assets and because they make different accounting choices.

Analysts use EBITDA to remove this element of personal choice from a company's accounting statements. The use of EBITDA is an attempt to make the results of different companies more comparable and uniform.

Be Aware

Although depreciation is not a cash cost it is a real business cost because the company has to pay for the fixed assets when they purchase them. Both Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger hate the idea of EBITDA because in this calculation, depreciation is not counted as an expense.

EBITDA over Revenue is a good metric for comparing the operating efficiencies between companies because EBITDA is less vulnerable to companies' accounting choices. For this reason, EBITDA is used in ranking the Predictability of Companies. Also Price-to-EBITDA is sometimes used in valuations.

Covista Communications EBITDA Related Terms

The historical data trend for Covista Communications's EBITDA can be seen below:

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.

Covista Communications EBITDA Chart

Covista Communications Annual Data
	Trend	Jan96	Jan97	Jan98	Jan99	Jan00	Jan01	Jan02	Jan03	Jan04	Jan05
EBITDA		Get a 7-Day Free Trial					-6.42	-7.59	-1.73	5.32	-0.74

Covista Communications Quarterly Data
	Jul00	Oct00	Jan01	Apr01	Jul01	Oct01	Jan02	Apr02	Jul02	Oct02	Jan03	Apr03	Jul03	Oct03	Jan04	Apr04	Jul04	Oct04	Jan05	Apr05
EBITDA	Get a 7-Day Free Trial															-0.42	0.07	-1.08	0.69	0.79

CVST vs FULO, TWER, DTGI: EBITDA Comparison

For the Telecom Services subindustry, Covista Communications's EV-to-EBITDA, along with its competitors' market caps and EV-to-EBITDA data, can be viewed below:

* Competitive companies are chosen from companies within the same industry, with headquarter located in same country, with closest market capitalization; x-axis shows the market cap, and y-axis shows the term value; the bigger the dot, the larger the market cap. Note that "N/A" values will not show up in the chart.

Covista Communications EV-to-EBITDA vs Telecommunication Services Industry

For the Telecommunication Services industry and Communication Services sector, Covista Communications's EV-to-EBITDA distribution charts can be found below:

* The bar in red indicates where Covista Communications's EV-to-EBITDA falls into.

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) is what the company earns before it expenses interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

Covista Communications's EBITDA for the fiscal year that ended in Jan. 2005 is calculated as

Covista Communications's EBITDA was directly provided by GuruFocus' data source Morningstar. For the fiscal year ended in Jan. 2005, Covista Communications's EBITDA was $-0.74 Mil.

Covista Communications's EBITDA for the quarter that ended in Apr. 2005 is calculated as

Covista Communications's EBITDA was directly provided by GuruFocus' data source Morningstar. For the quarter ended in Apr. 2005, Covista Communications's EBITDA was $0.79 Mil.

EBITDA for the trailing twelve months (TTM) ended in Apr. 2005 adds up the quarterly data reported by the company within the most recent 12 months, which was $0.47 Mil.

* For Operating Data section: All numbers are indicated by the unit behind each term and all currency related amount are in USD.
* For other sections: All numbers are in millions except for per share data, ratio, and percentage. All currency related amount are indicated in the company's associated stock exchange currency.

Sometimes companies may have already deducted Depreciation and Amortization from Gross Profit. In this case Depreciation and Amortization needs to be added back when calculating EBITDA.

Covista Communications Business Description