If you wanted to travel in an armoured car through the centre of Fallujah, you would do well to hire Jonathan Bloomer, bulletproof chief executive of Prudential, as a driver.

Brushing aside criticism of his remuneration, a decision to cut the Pru's dividend and the failure to sell online bank Egg, he further infuriated his shareholders last week by presenting them with an unexpected £1bn rights issue. Bloomer explained he wanted to spend £200m of the money to meet European capital requirements and use most of the rest to grow his business in the UK.