Well the easiest answer would be leverage on per share...

Well the easiest answer would be leverage on per share metrics.

To illustrate I'll use fictional round numbers.
1. Equity is 500M shares issued and trading at $1/sh .... MC = $500M
2. (net) Debt is $1,000M ($1B)
Makes the Debt/Equity ratio 2X ($2 of Debt for every $1 of Equity) and Debt is 67% of the company's capitalization.

So the Enterprise Value (EV) of this company is $1,500M. This company generates say $100M of EBITDA and on an EV basis the valuation metric is the EV of the company is 15X is annual EBITDA

Debt does not move around but market cap does. If it is thought this company's growth prospects are better than others investors will pay a premium. Say that is 20X ... makes the EV $2B (20 x $100M) and since the debt is $1B that must mean the MC is $1B and since there is 500M shares that means shares would be trading at $2 ... so 100% "rerate" as they say.

The alternative is NO DEBT .... so you would have to issue more shares ... 1B in this example and the EV is also $1,500M (based on 1,500M shares issued at $1). The same EBITDA is generated ... $100M so we have the same 15X trading multiple. Same growth prospects apply ... so it re-rates to 20X and EV is now $2B also .... but spread across 1.5B shares .... makes implied share price $1.33

That's the leverage the Debt brings to the balance sheet. That also flows through to all of the per share metrics (like earnings per share ... which would heavily favor the CEO who uses debt ... in other words they should never have incentives based on per share measures if there is debt on the balance sheet)

Now its just an illustration ... and I'm using EBITDA to make comparisons easy.

Hope it helps.

And yes MC should be higher but it is reflective of the risks .... VUL is reducing risk as it moves through all these milestones.