“We expect to receive an additional $3.8 billion of cash, with the large majority expected over the course of the fourth quarter and the early part of next year.”

In context

“to moderate versus last year, with a full-year decline in the low double-digit range. During the third quarter, we returned $3.5 billion to our shareholders. This includes nearly $1.5 billion in stock repurchases, keeping us on pace to achieve our full-year target of $4 billion in buybacks. We ended the third quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 2.59 times, down slightly from 2.64 times last quarter, reflecting strong cash generation and growth in adjusted EBITDA. We ended the quarter with more than $20 billion of cash, including proceeds from recent debt issuances. This puts us in a great position to fund our capital returns program and pending acquisitions. We closed the sale of our remaining stake in DIRECTV in July and received approximately $320 million in cash in the quarter. We expect to receive an additional $3.8 billion of cash, with the large majority expected over the course of the fourth quarter and the early part of next year. As a reminder, these post-sale proceeds are reported within investing activities in the statement of cash flows and excluded from our reported free cash flow. Overall, our third-quarter results showed that we're executing well and are reiterating our full-year financial guidance. At a consolidated level, this includes service revenue growth in the low single-digit range and adjusted EBITDA growth of 3% or better. We had an opportunity to settle some out-of-pattern legal settlements that will impact our fourth-quarter free cash flow by approximately $500 million. The expense associated with these settlements was accrued in the third quarter and excluded from adjusted EPS. However, we continue to expect full-year free cash flow in the low to mid $16 billion range, including about $4 billion”