Until the global financial crisis overturned the prevailing wisdom of institutional investors, the UK family-controlled brewer and pub owner Fuller, Smith & Turner was considered almost an anachronism in a highly-leveraged world. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, the firm had such low borrowing levels that it was shunned by most analysts and big investors in favour of much more highly-geared rivals who had not, in the phrase of the period, "tied up capital in the business".
