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 Thomson Reuters (TRI) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Thomson Reuters generated $2.73B of operating cash flow and $2.09B of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 76.5% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Thomson Reuters (TRI) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Thomson Reuters (TRI) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$2.73B

Capex

-$642M

Free Cash Flow

$2.09B

FCF Margin

+76.5%

Cash flow waterfall for Thomson Reuters (TRI) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $2.09B

Cash flow breakdown for Thomson Reuters (TRI) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$2.73B	$2.73B
Capital Expenditure	-$642M	$2.09B
Free Cash Flow	$2.09B	$2.09B
Acquisitions	-$181M	$1.91B
Other Investing	-$59.5M	$1.85B
Share Buybacks	-$1.27B	$581M
Dividends Paid	-$1.07B	-$484M
Net Debt Change	-$429M	-$913M
Other Financing & FX	-$58.6M	-$972M
Net Cash Decrease	-$972M	-$972M

Operating Cash Flow$2.73B
Capital Expenditure-$642M
Free Cash Flow$2.09B
Acquisitions-$181M
Other Investing-$59.5M
Share Buybacks-$1.27B
Dividends Paid-$1.07B
Net Debt Change-$429M
Other Financing & FX-$58.6M
Net Cash Decrease-$972M

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

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