Every time I see YBR's reports I think of a quote by Warren...

Every time I see YBR's reports I think of a quote by Warren Buffet from Berkshire's 2002 shareholder meeting...


It amazes me how widespread the use of EBITDA has become. People try to dress up financial statements with it.

We won’t buy into companies where someone’s talking about EBITDA.
If you look at all companies, and split them into companies that use EBITDA as a metric and those that don’t, I suspect you’ll find a lot more fraud in the former group.

Look at companies like Wal-Mart, GE and Microsoft — they’ll never use EBITDA in their annual report.
People who use EBITDA are either trying to con you or they’re conning themselves.
Telecoms, for example, spend every dime that’s coming in. Interest and taxes are real costs.