Tesco was urged to launch a €15 billion (£13.5 billion) bid for Ahold in order to further its ambitions in the United States.

Shares in the supermarket group rose 1½p to 409p after ING, the Dutch banking group, said that it would make sense for the British retailer to buy Ahold — a Dutch rival that has a big presence across the Atlantic.

ING said that the American market was too big for Tesco to ignore but that any attempt to increase the scale of Fresh & Easy, its loss-making US division, could prove very risky.

As such, ING argued that there was compelling strategic logic for a deal with Ahold, which it added should be viewed as a one-off opportunity to pick up an undervalued asset at a low point in the US consumer cycle.

Ahold has more than 700 stores in America, trading under the Stop & Shop and Giant names, compared with 126 Fresh & Easy outlets.

ING thinks that Tesco should be able to finance a potential €12.8-a-share bid, with a deal potentially adding as much as 20 per cent to the British group’s 2011 earnings per share, depending on synergies, which it said it conservatively estimated at about £493 million.

Tesco was also given a boost by Oriel Securities, which upgraded its rating on the chain to “buy”, saying that it thought the group was over the worst of the downturn.

The FTSE 100 closed up 59.95 points at 5,104.50, with mining companies leading the way. The sector was lifted by the weakening dollar, which strengthened gold and silver prices, and encouraging manufacturing data from China and the US. Randgold Resources was the top gainer, climbing 236p to £41.96, after it agreed, alongside AngloGold Ashanti, to buy a further 20 per cent of the Moto gold project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Elsewhere in the sector, Xstrata rose 39p to 921½p and Kazakhmys was up 49p at £11.38.

Royal Bank of Scotland was the worst-performing blue-chip stock, closing down 3.27p, or 7.8 per cent, at 38.65p after it said that the European Commission was insisting that it made some divestments “not initially contemplated”. Lloyds Banking Group fell 2p to 85p.

Commercial property groups lost ground amid concerns about lending, with Hammerson falling 14p to 392¼p and Segro sliding 11p to 342p.

Cable & Wireless rose 3½p to 148½p amid continuing speculation that the telecoms group will revive proposals to demerge its British and international businesses when it reports its first-half results on Thursday.

British Airways fell 2p to 180p ahead of interim figures on Friday and after Ryanair, down four cents at €2.8975, said that it was winning market share from BA but that revenues would continue to drop across the industry this winter.

Yell eased 1½p to 49¾ as investors in the directories publisher braced themselves for a £500 million-plus rights issue after the group’s creditors gave the green light for a debt restructuring. The debt deal will involve the company paying higher interest on its £3.9 billion bank loans in return for the repayment dates being pushed back.

New York: The Dow Jones industrial average, bolstered by promising manufacturing and housing data, closed 76.71 points up at 9,789.44.

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