India's Most Consistent Cash Generators Indian companies have seen very good times over the past 8-10 years, when there sales and profits have grown at a fast pace. However, not all of this profit growth has fallen through into free cash, as companies have also spent a lot of money on expansion adding new factories, offices, sales offices, and employees. This has meant that while profits have grown at a good pace, free cash flow has not been able to keep pace. This is validated by a mere 2 percent average annual growth in free cash flow of the Sensex companies (excluding banks and financial institutions) over the past 9 years. However, there have been several companies - as you can see in the chart below - that have been strong free cash generators over these years. Sun Pharma, the leading pharmaceutical company, has for instance grown its free cash flow at an average rate of 26 percent per year over these 9 years. India's leading steel manufacturer, Tata Steel, isn't far behind, with a 24 percent average annual growth in FCF during this period. And then there are the leading IT companies - Infosys and Wipro - that have grown their FCF at rates of 23 percent and 19 percent respectively.