Meanings of EBIT
EBIT is earnings before interest and taxes . This means that the operating result is presented independently of the amount of taxes and the forms of financing used, so that a company can evaluate itself in an international comparison.
Definition
“Earnings before interest and taxes” , or EBIT for short via abbreviationfinder, is also referred to as the operating result of a company. This is a key figure from business administration , with the help of which the profit that a company has achieved in a certain period of time can be read.
The amount of taxes and interest charged on loans vary in different countries. Therefore, after deducting these costs, the result of the respective company is no longer suitable for an international comparison. The operating result, however, is not influenced by such factors. It is therefore useful for evaluating a company, for example.
EBIT calculation
EBIT is calculated using either the total or cost of sales method. Both methods serve the profit and loss account of a company and offer the possibility of determining the EBIT as a subtotal.
In the total cost method, you compare the sales in a period with the total expenses incurred in the same period. In the cost of sales method , however, the sales of a period are compared with the direct production costs for these sales.
When comparing the EBIT of two or more companies, it is not just a matter of looking at the key figure itself. In addition, you should make sure that it was determined using the same method in all cases. Roughly speaking, the total cost method is a variant that is more commonly used in the German-speaking area. The cost of sales method, on the other hand, is more likely to be used in the Anglo-Saxon region and for companies that are listed on the stock exchange or are internationally active.
A simple formula for calculating EBIT:
Net income
+ tax expense
– tax income
+ interest expense or other financial expenses
– interest income or other financial income Earnings
= EBIT
What does the EBIT figure say?
EBIT is a key figure for the operating result . All expenses that you cannot assign to the actual activity of the company are filtered out for the calculation. Extraordinary expenses and income are also not taken into account.
Interest and taxes are ignored in the calculation, as they do not relate directly to the result of the operating business. This is how the company’s operating result is presented.
EBIT margin
You don’t take interest and taxes into account when calculating EBIT. Therefore, it is also possible to compare companies from several countries in this way. The results from the balance sheet are often falsified by various tax or interest rates, but this is not a problem with EBIT.
The so-called EBIT margin , which you can calculate as follows:
100 * EBIT / sales = EBIT margin in percent
It indicates how high the operating result was in relation to the company’s annual turnover . In short, a higher value means that a company is operating particularly economically. However, you should note that the value can differ significantly from industry to industry. Comparisons across different industries should therefore not be based on this margin.
The general rule of thumb is that a company with a margin of less than three percent is considered not very profitable or even vulnerable to crises. On the other hand, there is high profitability if the value is more than 15 percent.