Operating cash flow per share

Operating cash flow per share divides a company's operating cash flow by its number of shares outstanding, showing how much cash the core business generates for each individual share before any capital spending is subtracted.

The formula is:

It sits one step earlier in the cash flow statement than free cash flow per share, before capital expenditure is deducted, so comparing the two shows how capital-intensive a business is on a per-share basis. A wide gap between operating cash flow per share and free cash flow per share usually means heavy ongoing capital spending is eating into what's actually available to shareholders.