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 Universal Health Services (UHS) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Universal Health Services generated $1.91B of operating cash flow and $894M of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 46.9% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Universal Health Services (UHS) return via buybacks and dividends?

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

Universal Health Services (UHS) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

$1.91B

Capex

-$1.01B

Free Cash Flow

$894M

FCF Margin

+46.9%

Cash flow waterfall for Universal Health Services (UHS) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: $894M

Cash flow breakdown for Universal Health Services (UHS) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	$1.91B	$1.91B
Capital Expenditure	-$1.01B	$894M
Free Cash Flow	$894M	$894M
Acquisitions	-$31.1M	$863M
Other Investing	$46.2M	$909M
Share Buybacks	-$908M	$665K
Dividends Paid	-$50.7M	-$50M
Net Debt Change	$54M	$3.96M
Other Financing	$24.9M	$28.9M
Forex Effect	-$29.9M	-$990K
Net Cash Decrease	-$990K	-$990K

Operating Cash Flow$1.91B
Capital Expenditure-$1.01B
Free Cash Flow$894M
Acquisitions-$31.1M
Other Investing$46.2M
Share Buybacks-$908M
Dividends Paid-$50.7M
Net Debt Change$54M
Other Financing$24.9M
Forex Effect-$29.9M
Net Cash Decrease-$990K

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

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