Welcome back to the world of the Cash Kings, where we highlight businesses that generate a healthy dose of free cash flow. Why is cash flow so important? Because it gives management the opportunity to boost shareholder value through actions like:

A Fool's guide to free cash
Investing, after all, is about putting money up front today in order to get more of it in return tomorrow. Here at the Fool, we're firm believers that free cash flow, as opposed to traditional accounting earnings, is the best gauge of a firm's health and profitability (or lack thereof).

So, with these cash flow lessons deeply engrained in your Foolish subconscious -- or maybe just bookmarked as a "favorites" page -- I'll highlight three more cash-flow rulers of our Motley Fool CAPS kingdom.

Unlike General Motors (NYSE:GM) -- which is a cash-burning company that CAPS overwhelmingly dislikes -- these are businesses with free cash flow-to-sales margins above 15% (also known as the Cash King Margin), that our community is pretty bullish about.

So sound the trumpets! Here's another trio of Cash Kings from CAPS:

Company

Cash King Margin
(ttm)

CAPS Bulls

CAPS Bears 

F5 Networks (NASDAQ:FFIV)

28%

134

15

Enersis (NYSE:ENI)

18%

55

1

FormFactor (NASDAQ:FORM)

16%

355

8

As always, don't consider these stocks formal picks -- just suggestions worth further investigation. After all, due diligence is the Fool's way to riches.

But just for starters, here's a quick summary of these cash-throwing kings, and how some of their loyal CAPS followers feel about them.

High five     
With an impressive free cash flow-to-sales margin of more than 25%, F5 Networks takes the honors as this week's most prolific cash king. As one of the world's leading providers of Internet traffic and content management tools, F5 has the trusted Layer 7 application architecture, massive operating leverage, and impressive roster of clients -- including General Electric (NYSE:GE), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), and IBM (NYSE:IBM) -- to keep its fortress flush with cash.

In addition, a whopping 14 Wall Street firms (eight of which are All-Stars) -- whose picks we track on CAPS -- have an outperform rating out on the Seattle-based firm. CAPS player icemeta2 serves us more bullish content:

This is a great Internet traffic company that just released its updated equipment, which should be a blockbuster. The stock is volatile but has 33.5% market share (Application Delivery Controller market) ahead of CSCO's 30%, plus it has a better system. EXTREMELY consistent earnings and sales growth.

Latin power
The next monarch on our list is Enersis, one of Latin America's largest electric utilities and a Top 10 Utility Stock according to our CAPS community. For the past several years, Enersis has leveraged its subscriber base of close to 12 million customers, cheap hydro assets (which give it a tremendous cost advantage over its rivals), and the rampant growth of the Latin American economy, to generate healthy cash flows for its shareholders.

Despite a less-than-ideal financial position, CAPS All-Star Cobradon believes Enersis is still an attractive power play:

What's not to like about an electric utility company in one of the fastest growing areas of the world: South America? OK, yeah, there's a lot of debt, not something I personally like, but that's fairly standard for a utility. Lots of volatility possible for a foreign stock, but long term should prove this one out to be a winner.

Formed for a king
Our last free cash flow ruler this week is FormFactor, the leading manufacturer of probe cards used in the testing semiconductor wafers. The Motley Fool Hidden Gems selection is up 88% since the pick was made back in 2004, but a relatively unchanged stock price over the last year has given our CAPS Fools new reason to take a closer look.

FormFactor's 70% market share dominance, unrivaled MicroSpring technology (which allows it to test four times the number of devices an average card can), and expansion in areas like flash memory and chip logic are what drive the cash for this king. CAPS player NetscribeSemiCdr stays true to FORM:

The low debt level, along with the consistent, strong earnings, justifies the premium and P/E at which it is trading. The company is in good shape with orders flowing and is all set to beat the markets by a huge margin.

The Foolish bottom line
Free cash flow-generating companies like F5 Networks, Enersis, and FormFactor are always among my top candidates to research further. Our Motley Fool CAPS intelligence database is a great place to look for your own Cash Kings or read how your fellow Fools feel about thousands of different stocks.

Click here to join the forward-thinking CAPS community free of charge.

Be sure to join us next time when I feature three more cash kings from CAPS. Until then, may your cash flow reign supreme.  

For more Foolish usage of free cash:

Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. The Fool's disclosure policy is the strict set of rules that always rules Fools.