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 Linde (LIN) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Linde generated $10.4B of operating cash flow and $5.1B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 48.9% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Linde (LIN) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Linde (LIN) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$10.4B

Capex

-$5.33B

Free Cash Flow

$5.1B

FCF Margin

+48.9%

Cash flow waterfall for Linde (LIN) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $5.1B

Cash flow breakdown for Linde (LIN) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$10.4B	$10.4B
Capital Expenditure	-$5.33B	$5.1B
Free Cash Flow	$5.1B	$5.1B
Acquisitions	-$453M	$4.64B
Other Investing	$50M	$4.69B
Share Buybacks	-$4.3B	$396M
Dividends Paid	-$2.84B	-$2.45B
Net Debt Change	$1.08B	-$1.37B
Other Financing & FX	$31M	-$1.34B
Net Cash Decrease	-$1.34B	-$1.34B

Operating Cash Flow$10.4B
Capital Expenditure-$5.33B
Free Cash Flow$5.1B
Acquisitions-$453M
Other Investing$50M
Share Buybacks-$4.3B
Dividends Paid-$2.84B
Net Debt Change$1.08B
Other Financing & FX$31M
Net Cash Decrease-$1.34B

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

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