patterns / exit_grooming
buyout thesisfixed assets shrinking while cash grows — the owner is converting the business into money ahead of a deal; sells well above the base rate within a year, and these companies do NOT die (half the pool's failure rate)
Selling the vans, keeping the money in the company. A shrinking asset base with rising cash is rarely decline — the failure rate of this cohort is HALF the pool's — it is preparation: the owner simplifies the balance sheet before a sale. The backtest says the signal is front-loaded: the lift peaks inside the first twelve months.
An act-now lead: the owner has already started the exit in their head. For buyers, a cleaner deal — the assets are already liquid; for advisers, a seller who has not picked a bank yet.
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 the scout raises: a prompt to look closer, never a verdict.