EBITDA to sales ratio

Think: "EBITDA margin." Or cash flow profit margin, sorta.

How much cash is the company flowing relative to sales? What kind of profit margins does it have, if you strip out debt and capex being depreciated, and contracts being amortized? That's what this ratio is all about. Wall Street pros view the numbers skeptically, however, in that EBITDA is a non-GAAP term, so it can be "almost anything" when clever bean counters do the calculations.