Good morning. I’m back from a week’s holiday spent dog sitting in the sunny Cotswolds. Daisy the beagle has very few views on the City of London’s fight to save its future. Fortunately my colleagues are at hand with a new deep-dive.

The London Stock Exchange is (as much referenced in this newsletter) facing a dearth of listings, a domestic pensions industry that is shunning UK equities, and existential anxiety about a drift of homegrown companies towards deeper US markets.

Hoping to fix that conundrum are 10 top executives, including City grandees, advisers and investors, who meet each month to drive a radical overhaul of the UK’s capital markets and counter negativity surrounding the London market. Among them are Sir Jonathan Symonds, chair of drugmaker GSK, and Sir Nicholas Lyons, former lord mayor of the City of London and now chair of pensions group Phoenix.

Two years on from the launch of the so-called Capital Markets Industry Taskforce, its efforts are at a critical juncture.

“We’re at a very delicate tipping point right now where issuers and investors are starting to listen to us,” says Mark Austin, a CMIT member and corporate lawyer at Latham & Watkins, who adds that the “tide is turning”. Hear more about the group’s agenda, and how it’s achieving those aims in today’s forensic piece.

And ICYMI, catch up with the plan to reboot Britain’s capital markets with last week’s excellent FT film.

Tell me what you think. Email me at citybulletin@ft.com or hit reply to this email.

Prudential has announced a $2bn share buyback as it pursues a series of financial targets for 2027. The insurer said it would return the $2bn to shareholders by mid-2026 (with the timing subject to market conditions), while progress towards its objectives (including a boost to new business profit) “will increase the potential for further cash returns to shareholders”. Shares repurchased under the plan are expected to be cancelled. 

Ecommerce group THG has agreed a partnership with Sports Direct owner Frasers ahead of the former’s annual meeting today. The tie-up, announced by both companies, will include the integration of Frasers’ loyalty proposition, Frasers Plus, into THG’s Ingenuity platform, and THG selling its portfolio of luxury goods websites to Frasers, including www.coggles.com. THG also said it was eyeing the third consecutive quarter of year-on-year revenue growth in its second quarter.

The London Tunnels, a company set up to turn a former second world war tunnel complex in central London into a tourist attraction, has applied to list in Amsterdam, having said in January it would seek a flotation in London. The company, which plans to create a “beautifully designed, multi-sensory, digital experience” in the Kingsway Exchange tunnels, will publish a prospectus today.

Meanwhile Tui Group’s shares are expected to be delisted from the LSE today, following approval by shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in February to switch to a main listing in Frankfurt.

Insulation and building products supplier SIG has issued a profit warning due to weaker than expected recent trading. The company is now expecting to report a 7 per cent decline in like-for-like sales for the first half, while full year underlying operating profit will be between £20mn and £30mn, below current consensus estimates.

The French chief executive of Europe’s biggest stock exchange group, Paris-based Euronext, has appealed for business leaders to stay “calm” ahead of the country’s looming snap election. Stéphane Boujnah said neither the far-right RN party nor a new leftwing alliance would be able to enact their policy pledges, though their plans were “a concern for the future of the French economy”.

Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance has bankrolled millions of pounds in legal fees for its biggest creditors Greensill and Credit Suisse, underscoring the complex relationship between the steel magnate and lenders that are still owed billions according to today’s piece.

And a new report has found that insurance cover will be crucial for more than half of the $19tn of investment already committed to financing the transition to net zero, putting “unprecedented structural pressures” on the sector.

Martin Wolf has strong words about honesty in the UK election in today’s column, or rather the lack of it. “Democracy should deliver more than cynical public relations exercises”, he writes. “By these standards, this election is a flop.”