What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Applied Industrial Technologies generated $465M of operating cash flow and $437M of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 94.1% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Applied Industrial Technologies's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$465M

Capex

-$27.2M

Free Cash Flow

$437M

FCF Margin

+94.1%

Cash flow waterfall for Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $437M

Cash flow breakdown for Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$465M	$465M
Capital Expenditure	-$27.2M	$437M
Free Cash Flow	$437M	$437M
Acquisitions	-$31.5M	$406M
Other Investing	$1.81M	$408M
Share Buybacks	-$309M	$98.2M
Dividends Paid	-$71.3M	$26.9M
Net Debt Change	-$182M	-$155M
Other Financing & FX	-$26.3M	-$181M
Net Cash Decrease	-$181M	-$181M

Operating Cash Flow$465M
Capital Expenditure-$27.2M
Free Cash Flow$437M
Acquisitions-$31.5M
Other Investing$1.81M
Share Buybacks-$309M
Dividends Paid-$71.3M
Net Debt Change-$182M
Other Financing & FX-$26.3M
Net Cash Decrease-$181M

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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