EARNINGS BEFORE INTEREST, TAXES, DEPRECIATION, AMORTIZATION AND SPECIAL LOSSES EBITDAL

A measure of a company's financial performance that looks at earnings before the inclusion of interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and losses. These losses can be related to non-recurring expenses such as a loss in derivatives used to hedge currency or expense risks.

A company may include this performance measure in its financial statements to give an idea of the earnings the company generates from its ongoing operations. This measure is used especially when there is a period of large one-time special losses.

This non-GAAP measure along, with a myriad of others, is used in an attempt to make earnings figures either appear better than they actually are, or to give a more accurate picture of the operating results of the company. This makes it vital to understand the measure being used by the company along with its reasoning behind including it.