[Moneyverse] Jun Ji-hyun's EBITDA

Published 16 Jul.2026 11:05(KST)

#1. The real estate platform company Zigbang launched a large-scale marketing campaign last year, featuring Jun Ji-hyun as its model. Zigbang recorded sales of 92.2 billion won and an operating loss of 12.1 billion won in the previous year. At the end of March, Zigbang released an audit report containing these results, along with a separate press release. It explained that its EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) was a deficit of 600 million won, which represents a significant decrease compared to the 15 billion won deficit in 2024.

#2. The process of selling BKR, which operates Burger King in Korea, is currently underway. BKR previously reported annual sales of 892.2 billion won last year. Its EBITDA is reported to be 106 billion won.

The income statement within financial statements includes the operating profit and loss section. So why is EBITDA additionally or separately discussed?

First, as in the case of Zigbang, there can be a significant difference between operating profit and loss and EBITDA, or even opposite situations. Depreciation and amortization are expenses that do not actually involve cash outflows but are reflected in the income statement, impacting the reduction of operating profit. When amounts like depreciation and amortization are large, the EBITDA loss is smaller than the size of the operating loss. This is the point Zigbang emphasized in its separate press release.

Additionally, compared to operating profit, EBITDA better reflects a company's cash generation ability. For this reason, in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), company value has often been assessed based on EBITDA. The company value is calculated by multiplying EBITDA by the industry-average multiple, known as the 'multiple.' If we apply a multiple of 8–10 to BKR’s 2025 EBITDA of 106 billion won, the company’s value ranges from 848 billion to 1.06 trillion won.

This leads to another question. Besides the income statement, the financial statements also include a cash flow statement, which aggregates Operating Cash Flow (OCF). How does EBITDA differ from OCF? To calculate OCF, non-cash expenses such as depreciation and amortization are first added back to net income, while non-cash revenues like equity method gains are subtracted. In the second step, increases in operating assets are subtracted, and increases in operating liabilities are added. If accounts receivable increase more than the previous period and accounts payable decrease, cash flow worsens. If cash flow is calculated only up to the first step, disregarding interest and taxes, the figure closely resembles EBITDA.

EBITDA was devised prior to the introduction of formal cash flow statements, in response to the needs of capital markets to assess how much cash a company was generating. Compulsory cash flow statements were introduced in 1988 in the United States and 1994 in Korea.

It would be reasonable to choose and utilize the indicator that is superior. Seoul National University business professor Choi Jonghak, in his book "Manage by Numbers 1," evaluates that OCF is far superior to EBITDA in representing a company's cash generation ability. OCF also has the advantage of being easily verifiable in audited cash flow statements, even by the general public. Nonetheless, why is EBITDA used more frequently than OCF in practice? Professor Choi answers, "Because of the law of inertia." He explains, "Many who have not learned about the merits of OCF in school continue to use EBITDA as they did in the past."

Meanwhile, given the sectoral characteristics of the company 'Jun Ji-hyun,' which reportedly has very little operating assets such as inventories, the difference between EBITDA and OCF is likely to be small.