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Verified 2026 iXBRL Data

Zombie Detection. UK Cash-Rich, Equity-Negative Acquisition Targets.

When a company is generating cash but its accounts are upside-down, it almost always means historical leverage rather than a broken business. That's the classic Zombie, and it's the most under-priced archetype in UK private M&A.

SignalZombie DetectionNamed, typed event
RefreshDaily, ~04:00 GMTEvery business day
CoverageAll UK private companies, FRS 102 + FRS 105UK companies

The signal

Zombie Detection

Cash-rich balance sheets paired with negative equity, typically over-leveraged firms whose operating businesses still throw cash. The textbook turnaround target.

Trigger formulacash_at_bank > 2 × total_liabilities AND total_equity < 0
What we measureWe score every UK private filing for the simultaneous presence of strong liquidity and structural insolvency. Both conditions must hold across the most recent two filing periods to suppress false positives from one-off events.
Underlying iXBRL tagsuk-bus:CashBankInHanduk-bus:TotalLiabilitiesuk-bus:Equityuk-bus:NetCurrentAssets

What a match looks like

The kind of record this signal returns.

#Turnover (FY25)Trigger detail
1£1,200,000Cash 4.2× liabilities, equity −£640k
2£28,600,000Cash 2.8× liabilities, equity −£2.1M
3£3,900,000Cash 4.6× liabilities, equity −£280k
4£7,840,000Cash 2.1× liabilities, equity −£1.4M
5£2,460,000Cash 3.5× liabilities, equity −£190k

Illustrative examples of the figures each match carries. The live feed names every company, with the filing behind each figure.

Why Zombies are the cleanest pattern in UK M&A

The UK private register is unusually generous with Zombie candidates because of the historic preference for debt-led management buyouts. A 2016-vintage MBO that piled goodwill onto the balance sheet and then steadily paid down the debt out of operating cash will, by 2026, look exactly like a Zombie on paper, strong liquidity, negative book equity, healthy operating margins. To a deal team, that’s not distress. That’s a pre-priced acquisition.

We surface the population every morning, ranked by:

  • Cash multiple of total liabilities (the higher, the cleaner)
  • Operating margin trend (a stable or rising margin separates the turnaround from the slow-decline)
  • SIC peer benchmark (we suppress sectors where negative equity is structural, e.g. holdco vehicles)

The result is a daily list of typically 200–400 UK companies that match the academic Zombie definition and pass our peer-set sanity checks. Most are 8–12 weeks ahead of any broker pitch.

Get on the Pulse

Want every UK Zombie filed in the last 24h?

The Data Market lists the full Zombie feed plus 40 sibling stability signals, JSON, daily CSV or webhook delivery, full iXBRL provenance on every record.

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