For March 1, my forensic accounting needle in a haystack comes from a drilling company with hidden non-operating income. The Anadarko termination fee accounted for 60% of RDC’s $46 million adjusted EBITDA in 2018. As we all learned from Lending Club’s (LC) 10-K, as well as many other firms, adjusted EBITDA excludes real recurring costs. It’s only fair to assume that companies using this metric would also exclude non-recurring income. Keeping non-recurring income in the numbers boosts reported profitability and helps executives hit their bonus targets.

Source: Forbes March 05, 2019 14:15 UTC