Capital expenditure (capex) is the cash a company paid in a period to buy or build long-lived physical assets: buildings, machinery, data centres, stores, vehicles. It appears in the investing section of the cash flow statement.
How Listed shows it
As reported, from the line for purchases of property, plant and equipment: PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment, or PurchaseOfPropertyPlantAndEquipmentClassifiedAsInvestingActivities for IFRS filers. The XBRL fact records the payment as a positive amount, and Listed shows it that way: money spent. Quarterly figures are derived from year-to-date figures, as for operating cash flow.
What it leaves out
- Buying whole businesses (acquisitions), which is a separate investing line.
- Software and other intangible assets, when the company reports them on their own line.
- Assets taken on under leases, which involve no cash payment at the start.
So a company that capitalizes a lot of software on a separate line, or leases most of its assets, shows lower capex here than its spending on long-lived assets would suggest.
When it says "not reported"
The company reports its spending under a different concept, such as a combined line for property and intangible assets, or one of its own.