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 Illinois Tool Works (ITW) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Illinois Tool Works generated $3.16B of operating cash flow and $2.74B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 86.8% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Illinois Tool Works (ITW) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Illinois Tool Works (ITW) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$3.16B

Capex

-$418M

Free Cash Flow

$2.74B

FCF Margin

+86.8%

Cash flow waterfall for Illinois Tool Works (ITW) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $2.74B

Cash flow breakdown for Illinois Tool Works (ITW) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$3.16B	$3.16B
Capital Expenditure	-$418M	$2.74B
Free Cash Flow	$2.74B	$2.74B
Acquisitions	-$112M	$2.63B
Other Investing	$2M	$2.63B
Share Buybacks	-$1.5B	$1.13B
Dividends Paid	-$1.81B	-$680M
Net Debt Change	$565M	-$115M
Other Financing & FX	$69M	-$46M
Net Cash Decrease	-$46M	-$46M

Operating Cash Flow$3.16B
Capital Expenditure-$418M
Free Cash Flow$2.74B
Acquisitions-$112M
Other Investing$2M
Share Buybacks-$1.5B
Dividends Paid-$1.81B
Net Debt Change$565M
Other Financing & FX$69M
Net Cash Decrease-$46M

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

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