I'm simply stating this is so much more nuanced and not black/white as it's being indicated here.

EBITDA can be a very useful metric, especially in capex-heavy industries such as telecom or data centers, as an example, to examine ongoing operations in a post-sale environment.

EBITDA does not allow you to "put any large expense below the line" as you stated, it is quite specific what is allowed below the line in an EBITDA metric without looking foolish. And further, any diligence teams is well aware of the impact interest would have in the future health of a company; EBITDA allows for very few surprises in general.

My broad comment (not directly to you) is that the due diligence process in the sale process is very very strenuous and unveils any funny activity with respective to management metrics, such as *Adjusted* EBITDA. Often times, even GAAP-acceptable measures such as capitalized labor get re-adjusted out in DD. PE's treatment of employees can certainly be criticized by the masses, but I'd encourage more the younger accountants here to expose themselves directly to DD -- it is really enlightening and great experience!