
Liquidity and Capital Resources
We have historically maintained a disciplined capital strategy that balances growth, long-term financial leverage, credit ratings and returns to shareholders. We are focused on having the investment capacity to drive revenue growth, both organically and through acquisitions, while also maintaining our long-term financial leverage and credit ratings and continuing to provide returns to shareholders. Our principal sources of liquidity are cash on hand, cash provided by our operations, our commercial paper program and credit facility. From time to time, we also issue debt securities. Our principal uses of cash are for debt repayments, debt servicing costs, dividend payments, capital expenditures, share repurchases and acquisitions.
To date, we have not experienced any significant adverse impacts to our liquidity from the economic crisis caused by COVID-19. We continue to believe that we can weather the periods of volatility that are likely to occur as a result of the ongoing crisis, as our capital strategy approach has provided us with a strong capital structure and liquidity position. At September 30, 2021, we had $1.5 billion of cash on hand. Over the remainder of 2021, we expect to use about $200 million of our cash balance to pay the remaining income taxes on the sale of Refinitiv to LSEG and on the subsequent sale of some of our LSEG shares in the first quarter of 2021. We also plan to complete our existing program to repurchase some of our common shares, as described below.
We expect that the operating leverage of our business will increase our free cash flow if we increase revenues as contemplated by our outlook. We target a maximum leverage ratio of 2.5:1 net debt to adjusted EBITDA and have set a target to pay out 50% to 60% of our expected free cash flow as dividends to our shareholders. We completed a $200 million share repurchase program during the first quarter of 2021 to offset the dilution associated with our dividend reinvestment and equity incentive plans. In August 2021, we announced a new share repurchase program to repurchase up to $1.2 billion of our common shares, which we expect to complete by the end of this year. Under this program, we have repurchased approximately $1.1 billion of our common shares, of which we repurchased $603 million in the third quarter and approximately $450 million in October 2021 (refer to the “Share Repurchases - Normal Course Issuer Bid (NCIB)” section below and the “Subsequent Events” section of this management’s discussion and analysis for additional information). In the future, we expect that proceeds from sales of LSEG shares after the expiration of the applicable contractual lock-up provisions, as discussed in the “Sale of Refinitiv to LSEG” section of this management’s discussion and analysis, will provide us with further options for investment and returns to shareholders.
Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio as of September 30, 2021 was approximately 1.2:1, which is lower than our target of 2.5:1. As calculated under our credit facility covenant, our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio at September 30, 2021 was 1.1:1, which is well below the maximum leverage ratio allowed under the credit facility of 4.5:1. None of our debt securities are scheduled to mature until 2023.
On October 14, 2021, we announced the formation of a new $100 million Corporate Venture Capital fund, known as Thomson Reuters (TR) Ventures, to support and accelerate innovation for the “Future of Professionals”. As a leader in content-enabled technology across Legal, Tax & Accounting, Risk, Fraud, Compliance, and News & Media markets, our customers rely on us to deliver trusted solutions to manage and grow their businesses. TR Ventures will concentrate on investments supporting companies building innovations that will allow professionals to operate more productively and with greater insights.
We believe that our existing sources of liquidity will be sufficient to fund our projected cash requirements for the next 12 months.
The information above and in this section is forward-looking and should be read in conjunction with the section entitled “Additional Information—Cautionary Note Concerning Factors That May Affect Future Results”.
Cash flow
Summary of consolidated statement of cash flow
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| | Three months ended September 30, | | | Nine months ended September 30, | |
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(millions of U.S. dollars) | | 2021 | | | 2020 | | | $ Change | | | 2021 | | | 2020 | | | $ Change | |
Net cash provided by operating activities | | | 534 | | | | 581 | | | | (47) | | | | 1,376 | | | | 1,179 | | | | 197 | |
Net cash used in investing activities | | | (545) | | | | (62) | | | | (483) | | | | (205) | | | | (404) | | | | 199 | |
Net cash used in financing activities | | | (817) | | | | (318) | | | | (499) | | | | (1,444) | | | | (443) | | | | (1,001) | |
(Decrease) increase in cash and bank overdrafts | | | (828) | | | | 201 | | | | (1,029) | | | | (273) | | | | 332 | | | | (605) | |
Translation adjustments | | | (3) | | | | 5 | | | | (8) | | | | (3) | | | | (5) | | | | 2 | |
Cash and bank overdrafts at beginning of period | | | 2,342 | | | | 946 | | | | 1,396 | | | | 1,787 | | | | 825 | | | | 962 | |
Cash and bank overdrafts at end of period | | | 1,511 | | | | 1,152 | | | | 359 | | | | 1,511 | | | | 1,152 | | | | 359 | |
Non-IFRS Financial Measure(1) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Free cash flow | | | 383 | | | | 541 | | | | (158) | | | | 1,001 | | | | 881 | | | | 120 | |
(1) | Refer to Appendices A and B of this management’s discussion and analysis for additional information and reconciliations of our non-IFRS financial measures to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measure. |
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