KLM has enough unencumbered assets to ride out the current crisis, said Christopher Avery of J. P. Morgan in London.

I'll take a mortgage on something, if you've got an unencumbered asset.

The Club avoided closure during the dark days of the early 1930s; the club did not have a single unencumbered asset during that period.

And unlike United, US Airways lacks unencumbered assets to help it secure private financing.

The anticipated project size must be greater than the personal, non-retirement, unencumbered liquid assets of the guarantors/principals.

"Our unencumbered assets are limited, our credit ratings have been substantially lowered and our cost structure is materially higher than that of our competitors," the airline said in its regulatory filing.

"But America West has extremely limited resources and little in the way of unencumbered assets to generate cash for funding continuing operating losses."

The company has "relatively high occupancy rates, a diversified portfolio and ample unencumbered assets," Mr. Powers said.

The creditors of the corporation will then often have little or no unencumbered assets left upon which to collect their debts.

LTV Steel's pension fund fell to the government in March 2002, and its unencumbered assets - steel mills, coke and lime plants, railroads and other properties - were snapped up at once.