No the numbers I had was for EBITDA.

The point I was trying to make was just that an FTer used a silly argument to tell another FTer that they were making a silly argument. P/E is an 'ok' quick yardstick if you are considering non-cyclical low growth stocks. Mostly because if the stocks have high growth opportunities or are coming out of the lows of a cycle, they will have a very high P/E ratio, but a high P/E ratio given the axioms of P/E analysis means that the stock is overvalued. The inverse is also true (a stock coming out of a high cycle and with decreasing growth will have a low P/E, but is obviously poised for a decline). So it's actually just a really bad metric for most stocks. Like saying "this vegetable is bad for you because I don't like how it tastes".


But in know way I think AC is a good current investment (I haven't done proper homework on it, and I certainly wouldn't advertise it for free on FT), but just using EV/EBITDA can show how the analysis can go from one extreme to the other in about half a second.