Maintenance CapEx
The part of capital expenditure needed only to keep the business running at its current capacity: replacing worn equipment, renewing systems, refitting sites. Everything above it is growth capex. The split is not disclosed, so it is estimated, most often by taking the depreciation charge as the floor and adjusting for asset inflation and for the capacity the company actually added.
Practise it
The schedule a real model uses: one layer per capex vintage, each depreciating over its own useful life, with the charge as the column total. Switch the life, switch to an accelerated method, or type over a capex year and watch the stack move.
Open Depreciation Waterfall — free, 10 minWhere Maintenance CapEx comes up
Go deeper
This term comes up constantly in corporate finance interviews and on the desk.
Investment Banking interview prepRelated Corporate Finance terms
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