financial-metrics
OPEX is the period cost of running the business that is expensed as incurred — payroll, rent, marketing, professional fees, most R&D — as opposed to CAPEX, which is capitalised onto the balance sheet.
The Conceptual Framework distinguishes assets from expenses. OPEX is the bucket of outflows that do not meet capitalisation tests: they reduce profit now. CAPEX meets those tests and reduces profit later via depreciation.
In a functional P&L, opex is often SG&A plus R&D plus other operating items, after cost of sales. In a nature-of-expense P&L (common in Europe), you reconstruct “opex” from employee costs, services, leases and so on, minus amounts in cost of sales.
There is no universal identity, but a working definition for deal models is:
Cash opex ≈ EBITDA reconciling items that are operating and not D&A, minus or plus non-cash opex
More plainly:
EBIT = Gross profit − OPEX − D&A (if D&A is presented below gross profit)
Illustration only. Hypothetical specialist retailer.
| Amount | Treatment fight | |
|---|---|---|
| Store payroll & rent | €6.4m | Clear opex |
| National marketing | €1.1m | Opex — unless someone capitalises “brand” |
| ERP implementation (cash) | €0.8m | Part opex, part IAS 38? |
| Van purchases | €0.5m | CAPEX |
| Owner’s personal costs in SG&A | €0.2m | Add-back candidate |
Adjusted EBITDA that adds back the ERP and the owner costs must still tell the buyer which ERP spend returns next year as opex.
Opex / sales is operating leverage in disguise. Step-fixed costs (a second warehouse, a compliance team) create kinks. SaaS businesses often hide customer-acquisition cost in opex while capitalising commissions — read both.
Margin bridges; synergy models for strategic buyers; replacement-cost payroll in owner-managed companies.
The opex/capex boundary is a standard-and-policy choice. Two peers can report different EBITDA margins with identical cash spend. Non-cash opex (share-based payment, provisions) further splits “cash opex” from P&L opex.
Dazur maps every material cost as cost-of-sales, cash opex, non-cash opex, or capex. That map is what makes quality of earnings and a valuation talk about the same cost base.