EBITDA is just as important a figure as the after tax profits imo.
Let's take yourshop as an example. Let's assume they've have recently upgraded their equipment at a cost of £1million. This equipment will probably last them 25 years, but accounting rules state they have to depreciate it in 4 years.
They make a EBITDA profit of £200,000. Due to the accounting rules they show a loss of £50,000. The profits don't change for the next 5 years. In year 5 the equipment has been depreciated and the annual profit is now £200,000 a year. They've also got an extra £1 million in the bank that was depreciated in the previous years, but not needed for another 20.
So would you not have invested due to the "paper loss"?
I'm a Stobart shareholder and am perfectly happy with the progress. It would have been nice to see higher passenger numbers by now, but hopefully that will come soon enough. BTW, I expect there are a high number of fixed costs and an increase in passenger numbers should exponentially improve the profit numbers.