CROWN CASTLE INC. (CCI) — payout ratio, four ways
Fiscal year ending 2025-12-31 · sector Real estate · computed from SEC filings, not taken from a data vendor.
| Basis | Payout | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|
| GAAP earnings | 470.3% | What most screeners publish, and badly wrong here — depressed by depreciation on buildings that are not losing value. |
| Operating cash flow | 68.0% | Before capital spending, so it understates the payout that free cash flow shows. |
| Free cash flow | 72.3% | Counts property acquisitions as though they were maintenance. |
| Funds from operations | 183.0% | The basis the real estate industry uses. Adds back depreciation on buildings that are not losing value. |
Spread between highest and lowest: 402 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.
The arithmetic
- GAAP earnings — dividends declared per share $4.75 ÷ diluted EPS $1.01
- Operating cash flow — dividends paid $2,080.0m ÷ operating cash flow $3,057.0m
- Free cash flow — dividends paid $2,080.0m ÷ (operating cash flow $3,057.0m − capex $182.0m)
- Funds from operations — dividends declared per share $4.75 ÷ derived FFO $2.59 per share
- FFO built NAREIT-style: net income, plus real-estate depreciation, less gains on sale, over weighted-average diluted shares
- This is an approximation. Every REIT defines its own adjusted variant in the filing text, so it will not match the earnings release exactly
Where the figures came from
- 10-K filed 2026-02-23 · accession
0001051470-26-000016
Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take my word for any of it.
Caveats on this company
- FFO payout 183% covers a year in which the declared dividend fell 24% from $6.26 to $4.75. The ratio spans pre- and post-cut quarters and is not representative of the current run rate.
- FFO derived (NAREIT approximation)
Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell me — that is more useful to me than agreement.