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Good morning from the Financial Times.

Today is Tuesday, February 28th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

Shell toyed around with the idea of moving to the US,

the European Union and the UK took a huge step towards trading after Brexit,

and the FT's Rob Armstrong says the dance between investors and central banks has gotten kind of dull.

We've been watching this television show, either forwards or backwards now, for well over a year.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

Back in 2021, the energy giant Shell decided to leave the Netherlands and settle in London,

but that almost didn't happen.

The FT has learned that two years ago, Royal Dutch Shell explored moving the company's headquarters

to the US, sources say the company thought about a public listing in the US too.

The FT's Derek Rower explains why Shell considered such a mammoth change.

They look at Exxon and Chevron in particular.

They're two super major rivals in the US and they see these two companies that frankly have

much higher share prices and are doing much better in the eyes of the investor community.

And the US has this huge investor base, this huge pool of capital on Wall Street,

and at the time when it was considering whether to move, I think that was an attractive proposition.

The idea that they could access the same pool of capital that Exxon and Chevron were.

And the other thing to bear in mind is that it's not just that they considered

this move to the US at one stage.

...