Why it matters

A generation of trading without a single secured loan: unencumbered assets, no lender relationships, everything financed from cashflow. Rare and valuable — most companies pledge something within a decade.

The play

The ideal LBO target: the clean balance sheet itself finances the deal (acquisition debt secured on the target's own unpledged assets).

How it's kept honest

The badge is recomputed nightly across the whole index, and re-evaluated live the moment a company files — so a match is always a statement about the current register, not a stale list. Like every signal on the radar: a prompt to look closer, never a verdict.