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 AXIS Capital Holdings (AXS) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, AXIS Capital Holdings generated $169M of operating cash flow and $169M of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 100% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did AXIS Capital Holdings (AXS) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

AXIS Capital Holdings (AXS) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$169M

Capex

$0.00

Free Cash Flow

$169M

FCF Margin

+100.0%

Cash flow waterfall for AXIS Capital Holdings (AXS) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $169M

Note: Other Investing is large — driven mainly by purchases or sales of investments.

Cash flow breakdown for AXIS Capital Holdings (AXS) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$169M	$169M
Capital Expenditure	$0.00	$169M
Free Cash Flow	$169M	$169M
Acquisitions	-$32M	$137M
Other Investing	-$1.38B	-$1.25B
Share Buybacks	-$507M	-$1.75B
Dividends Paid	-$169M	-$1.92B
Other Financing & FX	-$23.8M	-$1.94B
Net Cash Decrease	-$1.94B	-$1.94B

Operating Cash Flow$169M
Capital Expenditure$0.00
Free Cash Flow$169M
Acquisitions-$32M
Other Investing-$1.38B
Share Buybacks-$507M
Dividends Paid-$169M
Other Financing & FX-$23.8M
Net Cash Decrease-$1.94B

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

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