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 Charter Communications (CHTR) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Charter Communications generated $16.1B of operating cash flow and $4.03B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 25% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Charter Communications (CHTR) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Charter Communications (CHTR) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$16.1B

Capex

-$12.1B

Free Cash Flow

$4.03B

FCF Margin

+25.0%

Cash flow waterfall for Charter Communications (CHTR) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $4.03B

Cash flow breakdown for Charter Communications (CHTR) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$16.1B	$16.1B
Capital Expenditure	-$12.1B	$4.03B
Free Cash Flow	$4.03B	$4.03B
Acquisitions	-$353M	$3.68B
Other Investing	$325M	$4B
Share Buybacks	-$5.36B	-$1.35B
Net Debt Change	$1B	-$350M
Other Financing & FX	$106M	-$244M
Net Cash Decrease	-$244M	-$244M

Operating Cash Flow$16.1B
Capital Expenditure-$12.1B
Free Cash Flow$4.03B
Acquisitions-$353M
Other Investing$325M
Share Buybacks-$5.36B
Net Debt Change$1B
Other Financing & FX$106M
Net Cash Decrease-$244M

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

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