Problem of plenty for Indian companies as cash pile keeps growing

New investments haven't kept pace with money flowing in from operations

RJR Nabisco, the American tobacco and food giant whose takeover spawned the classic Barbarians at the Gate reportage book, once had so much surplus cash that it spent it on a fleet of 10 corporate jets, lavish executive perks and even contemplated spending $10 million on a robot to replace a single forklift operator in its bakery business. The strong cash flow, with apparently limited avenues for profitable deployment, was one of the attractions that triggered its leveraged buyout in the 1980s.

Recent reports have pointed at large cash balances at some of the world’s biggest firms. Alphabet, Google’s holding