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 Cigna (CI) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Cigna generated $8.81B of operating cash flow and $7.66B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 86.9% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Cigna (CI) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Cigna (CI) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$8.81B

Capex

-$1.15B

Free Cash Flow

$7.66B

FCF Margin

+86.9%

Cash flow waterfall for Cigna (CI) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $7.66B

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

Cash flow breakdown for Cigna (CI) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$8.81B	$8.81B
Capital Expenditure	-$1.15B	$7.66B
Free Cash Flow	$7.66B	$7.66B
Acquisitions	$1.77B	$9.43B
Other Investing	-$6.86B	$2.57B
Share Buybacks	-$2.11B	$458M
Dividends Paid	-$1.62B	-$1.16B
Net Debt Change	$362M	-$796M
Other Financing & FX	-$503M	-$1.3B
Net Cash Decrease	-$1.3B	-$1.3B

Operating Cash Flow$8.81B
Capital Expenditure-$1.15B
Free Cash Flow$7.66B
Acquisitions$1.77B
Other Investing-$6.86B
Share Buybacks-$2.11B
Dividends Paid-$1.62B
Net Debt Change$362M
Other Financing & FX-$503M
Net Cash Decrease-$1.3B

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

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