The blue-chip index added 229 points, or 3.5%, on Wednesday to close at 6,841.

When points are converted to pounds, it meant almost £61bn was added to its collective market value in the session.

It was banking and energy stocks – battered by COVID-19 to date – that gained the best traction.

Market analysts pointed to several factors helping many of its constituent companies, with dollar-earners doing well as it looked likely that the Democrats would take control of the US Senate in the election run-off.

It was seen as making additional stimulus for the US economy more likely as Joe Biden prepares to occupy the White House later this month and replace Republican Donald Trump’s administration.

That, coupled with promises of an oil output cut by Saudi Arabia to prop up prices, helped energy and mining stocks gain with BP and Royal Dutch Shell adding more than 6.5% each.

HSBC, Standard Chartered and Barclays led the winners – gaining up to almost 10%.

Hopes that vaccines will help lift the UK economy from the doldrums, despite new national lockdowns, have driven a recovery in UK shares since November.

It has helped the FTSE 100 outperform with an 8% gain since the beginning of December.

That came from a position of weakness, however.

Its recovery failed to keep pace with major equity markets in the second half of 2020 across most of Europe and the US, where, latterly, record levels have been achieved consistently.

Such a feat would have seemed impossible last February as values crashed worldwide in the face of pandemic panic.

It saw the FTSE dive from 7,400 points to below the 5,000 point barrier in a matter of weeks.

Brexit uncertainty and its exposure to sectors worst hit by coronavirus disruption, including travel, left values dragging their heels.

The German DAX and French CAC were more than 1% higher on Wednesday with analysts in Europe also crediting vaccine progress on the continent.

David Madden, market analyst at CMC Markets in London, said: “Eurozone stocks were already in recovery mode this morning and then the European Medicines Agency approved Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine for EU use so that added to the optimistic sentiment,” he wrote.

On Wall Street, tech stocks struggled over fears a Democrat-controlled Senate in a Biden presidency would unleash a regulatory crackdown on big names including Alphabet and Facebook.

The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were up by more than 1%.

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Jeremy Darroch is to step down as chief executive of Sky, the parent company of Sky News, after 13 years.

Mr Darroch, 58, is one of the UK’s longest-serving chief executives.

His successor will be Dana Strong, currently president of consumer services at Comcast Cable, the largest broadband and pay TV provider in the United States.

Comcast bought Sky for nearly £30bn in October 2018 after outbidding 21st Century Fox, the US media giant headed by Rupert Murdoch, which had been seeking to take full control.

Ms Strong has been an executive in the telecoms and media industry for more than 25 years and, earlier in her career, was chief operating officer of Virgin Media – one of Sky’s competitors.

To ensure a smooth transition, Mr Darroch will become executive chairman of Sky, remaining in the post throughout 2021. He will then act as an advisor to the company.

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GB News, which aims to launch later this year, said on Wednesday that Sir Paul Marshall, a prominent hedge fund manager, and Legatum, a Dubai-based investment group, would become major shareholders in the company.

The announcement of its founding investors – which confirmed a series of Sky News reports in recent weeks – paves the way for GB News to introduce what it says will be “a boldly different 24-hour television and digital news service”.

GB News will be chaired by Andrew Neil, the veteran former BBC broadcaster, who will also host a prime-time programme on the channel.

Mr Neil said he was “thrilled to have such a broad range of high-calibre investors who share our belief that many British people are crying out for a news service that is more diverse and more representative of their values and concerns.

“GB News is a massive undertaking in a fiercely competitive market but we’re confident there’s an appetite for a fresh approach to news in Britain, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.”

The new channel says it will recruit 140 staff – including 120 journalists – and expects to reach 96% of British television households through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, YouView and Freesat.

It said on Wednesday that it would also launch streaming, video-on-demand and audio services.

GB News’ initial investors are led by Discovery, the American media group, which has committed £20m to fund the launch.

Between them, Discovery, Sir Paul – co-founder of the hedge fund Marshall Wace – and Legatum, which partly funds the think-tank The Legatum Institute, account for the vast majority of the £60m funding raised by the new venture, according to insiders.

Sources said that the Reuben family, which had been in talks with GB News executives, had not participated in the fundraising.

GB News has been set up by media industry figures including Andrew Cole, a director of Liberty Global, and Mark Schneider, who also founded parts of what went on to become the American tycoon John Malone’s telecommunications empire.

The new channel is to be run as chief executive by Angelos Frangopoulos, a former Sky News Australia executive.

Mr Frangopoulos said: “This is a significant investment in British journalism at a time when it’s needed most.

“GB News will be proudly independent and fearless in tackling the issues people care about, especially in communities outside London.”

The channel may not be the only addition to the UK’s broadcast news landscape this year, with Rupert Murdoch also preparing to establish a TV news channel in the UK.

Lord Sugar and Piers Morgan are among those being courted by Mr Murdoch’s News UK to join his new outfit, according to reports.

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Businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors will receive up to £9,000 in one-off grants to help them through England’s new coronavirus restrictions, the chancellor has said.

The grants were part of a package of measures announced by Rishi Sunak totalling £4.6bn to help struggling firms after the latest measures came into force.

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London’s leading share index was up by as much as 3% or more than 200 points, pulled higher by commodity giants such as Fresnillo and Glencore which tend to track global economic sentiment.

The biggest riser was Ladbrokes owner Entain, climbing more than 20% after it confirmed a takeover offer by US casino giant MGM Resorts.

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Markets were reopening for the first time in the new Brexit era after a last-minute deal between London and Brussels eased fears of a chaotic departure – though optimism was likely to have been tempered by fears of tightening COVID restrictions.

UK-focused stocks such as Natwest and Lloyds Banking Group as well as engine maker Rolls-Royce and house builder Taylor Wimpey were among the few FTSE 100 fallers.

The pound had a mixed start, climbing above $1.37 for the first time since May 2018 – versus a weakening US dollar – but dipping by nearly a cent to close to €1.11 against the euro.

“The FTSE 100 started 2021 with a bang,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, pointing to the impact of the start of the AstraZeneca vaccine roll-out as well as the Entain offer.

“For now investors clearly believe the vaccine will provide the catalyst for a big recovery, perhaps after a tough first quarter, but getting enough of the population inoculated will be a big logistical challenge,” Mr Mould said.

Markets also appear to be counting on governments and central banks to keep supporting global economies even if the pandemic continues to hold businesses back.

Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, said: “We continue to believe that equities have further room to rise in 2021 as monetary and fiscal stimulus measures provide a tailwind, and we anticipate significant earnings growth as the global economy recovers.”

The FTSE 100’s start-of-year rally comes after it clocked up its worst annual fall since 2008 last year, lagging Wall Street indices that were pulled higher by the strength of tech stocks.

Monday’s rally however saw the commodities-heavy London index outperform European counterparts, with an upturn for the oil price lifting the likes of BP and Shell to add to the surge in mining stocks.

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Ladbrokes owner Entain has confirmed it has received a takeover offer from US casino operator MGM Resorts.

The company, which also owns the Coral chain and online brands such as Sportingbet and Foxy Bingo, said it believes the £8.1bn offer “significantly undervalues the company and its prospects”.

It said it had asked MGM Resorts to “provide additional information in respect of the strategic rationale for a combination of the two companies” and that “a further announcement will be made as appropriate”.

The offer comes months after another US casino operator, Caesars Entertainment, agreed to buy UK bookmaker William Hill for £2.9bn – though it plans to spin off the UK betting shop part of the business after the deal completes.

Entain, which recently changed its name from GVC, has more than 3,000 betting shops under the Ladbrokes and Coral brands.

It employs more than 18,000 people in the UK, roughly three quarters of the global total.

Last November, new boss Shay Segev laid out plans to transform the business by pulling out of some unregulated global markets and focusing on sports betting and gaming entertainment – areas that have prospered during lockdowns.

In 2019, the company said it was shutting 900 betting shops – having warned of closures as a result of a crackdown of fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTS).

Entain issued a statement on MGM’s offer after a report overnight from the Wall Street Journal about the proposal – which also said a previous attempt had been rebuffed.

Noting the recent “press speculation”, the company said it “confirms that it has received proposals from MGM Resorts International… concerning a possible offer for Entain”.

MGM is already Entain’s partner in the US market, operating joint venture BetMGM.

Entain said the “most recent proposal” from MGM Resorts, an all-share deal that would leave its current investors with just over 40% of the enlarged company, valued it at a 22% premium to the its latest market value of £6.63bn.

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The marketing services tycoon Sir Martin Sorrell will this week swoop to make two US additions worth more than $200m (£146m) to his digital advertising empire.

Sky News understands that S4 Capital – founded by Sir Martin in the wake of his departure from WPP Group – will announce on Monday that it is buying Decoded Advertising, a creative agency, and Metric Theory, a data-driven digital agency.

The purchases will be the latest in a blizzard unveiled by S4 since its launch less than three years ago, and will take the group’s total workforce to more than 3,500 people.

Insiders said that Decoded and Metric Theory would become part of S4’s MediaMonks and MightyHive divisions respectively.

Decoded, which has offices in New York and Los Angeles, serves clients including T-Mobile, Visa and SC Johnson.

Metric Theory, which counts GoFundMe among its clients, was founded in 2012 and has offices in locations including San Francisco and Orange County.

The pair of acquisitions will be funded half in cash and half in S4 shares, following S4’s conventional model.

Sources said that S4’s balance sheet would continue to retain a substantial cash-pile following the two deals, with further takeovers expected in the coming months.

Sir Martin’s conviction about the timing of his ‘next-generation’ approach to building an advertising holding company has been reinforced by the coronavirus pandemic, with a surge in online and other digital spending by brand marketers.

The businessman is also said to believe that the step towards resolving Britain’s post-Brexit future through the trade deal agreed with the EU on Christmas Eve will also spur Britain’s economic bounce-back.

S4, which declined to comment on its latest two acquisitions, remains a smaller but fast-growing rival to WPP – the business Sir Martin built over 35 years into the world’s biggest marketing services holding company – and rivals such as Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe.

Previous takeover by S4 include Circus, an agency which counts Facebook, Google and Spotify as clients, Firewood, the largest marketing agency in Silicon Valley, and Orca Pacific.

S4’s shares have soared by almost 160% during the last year, giving it a market value of nearly £2.7bn.

Its rapid growth has been trumpeted by Sir Martin as vindication of his company’s strategy, which he launched within months of his controversial WPP exit.

While Sir Martin’s pipeline of takeover candidates looks very different to those he pursued during much of his WPP reign, the playbook of bolt-on acquisitions and targeting of faster-growing geographies is similar.

Sir Martin remains a shareholder in WPP, with a big chunk of his wealth tied up in the stock of the company he took from a manufacturer of shopping baskets in 1985 to bestriding the global advertising industry.

When he stepped down in April 2018, WPP was valued by the stock market at more than £16bn.

Under Mark Read, Sir Martin’s successor, WPP has sold a majority stake in its market research arm Kantar and merged a number of its agency brands.

The company now has a market value of just under £10bn.

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The Post Office will this week outline plans to hand two board seats to serving postmasters as it seeks to draw a line under the IT scandal which saw managers wrongly sent to prison.

Sky News has learnt that the government-owned company will announce on Monday that a committee of independent businesspeople is being set up to oversee the board appointments process.

Sources close to the Post Office said it had lined up James Lowman, head of the Association of Convenience Stores; Co-op Group finance chief Shirine Khoury-Haq; and Jean Church, council member at the Institute of Directors to ensure “a transparent and independent selection process”.

The postmasters’ appointment will be the first time that they have had direct board representation in the Post Office’s 460-year history.

An insider said the application process would be open for four weeks, with the successful applicants joining the board in April.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma will be required to approve the appointments because of his department’s oversight of the Post Office.

The decision to appoint two postmasters as non-executive directors – rather than the one originally envisaged – would “strengthen their input on all issues as they help shape the future direction of the Post Office”, the insider said.

The move marks part of chief executive Nick Read’s attempt to reset the company’s relationship with its army of postmasters following one of the most disgraceful corporate episodes in recent times.

Relations between the company and its postmasters were strained for years by a scandal involving the use of a faulty IT system called Horizon, which led to some branch managers being wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting.

A small number of sub-postmasters were sent to prison, while others were declared bankrupt over the affair.

In December 2019, the Post Office agreed to pay nearly £58m to settle a legal claim brought by 550 sub-postmasters.

At the time, the network, which has around 11,500 branches across Britain, apologised, with Mr Read’s predecessor, Paula Vennells, targeted with particularly fierce criticism over her handling of the crisis.

Last May, it launched a scheme to provide redress to current and former postmasters who were not part of the litigation settlement but who believe they were adversely affected by earlier versions of the Horizon computer system.

Six former sub-postmasters recently had their fraud convictions quashed, and campaigners are demanding further redress for those affected.

The newly appointed directors will have a remit to represent the interests of postmasters, who manage individual branches or small groups of them.

The Post Office is an entirely separate company from Royal Mail Group, which was privatised in 2013 and floated on the London Stock Exchange.

The two businesses have a close commercial relationship, although it is no longer being conducted on an exclusive basis, with the Post Office now able to work with other parcel delivery groups.

Mr Read is also focused on delivering a renewed partnership with Britain’s major banks and building societies, while its travel and bill payment services are also expected to receive substantial investment.

He is in talks to sell its broadband arm to Shell, while its insurance business is also likely to be offloaded.

The Post Office declined to comment on Sunday.

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The cryptocurrency rose to as high as $31,824 early on Saturday – just two weeks after passing the $20,000 mark.

Its rise has been attributed to traders increasingly betting on it becoming a mainstream payment method.

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Investors have also been attracted by the potential for quick gains.

Some also saw it as a safe-haven store of value during the pandemic – like gold, an asset which traditionally rises during times of wider market volatility.

In previous years, investors had a bumpy ride as it climbed to around $20,000 in 2017 before slumping 80%.

Bitcoin is the most valuable and popular of a range of digital currencies and some have suggested it could pass $100,000 this year – but others dismiss such predictions as outlandish.

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey recently said he was “very nervous” about people using Bitcoin to make payments.

He has also warned that people who invest in the cryptocurrency should be prepared to “lose all their money”.

In October, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said crypto derivatives – financial products based on the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies – would be banned from sale to retail consumers from next January.

It said consumers were at risk of “sudden and unexpected losses” from the investments – effectively bets on cryptocurrency prices – and that the ban would save them about £53m a year.

The FCA says cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value.

But its supporters point out that Bitcoin is accepted by companies including Starbucks and Microsoft as a form of payment.

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Sky News has learnt that Amsprop Investments, the peer’s private commercial property group, is among seven parties which have lodged a legal challenge aimed at blocking Caffe Nero’s company voluntary arrangement (CVA).

Amsprop’s involvement in the challenge, which is understood to have been filed on Christmas Eve, will intensify scrutiny of a restructuring that will affect the fate of thousands of high street workers.

Under the plans tabled by Gerry Ford, Caffe Nero’s controlling shareholder, landlords would forfeit most of their outstanding rent payments – a move which has angered commercial property-owners who have seen their businesses hammered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Landlords were, however, promised full payment of rent arrears as part of a takeover offer proposed just before December’s CVA vote by EG Group, the petrol station empire run by Lancashire-based brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa.

The Issas, who are in the process of buying Asda alongside their private equity backers, TDR Capital, are understood to be underwriting the cost of the legal challenge to the CVA.

One source said that the landlords who were contesting the restructuring were largely ‘mom and pop’ property-owners who would not have the resources to fund a significant legal fight.

The involvement of Lord Sugar’s group, which was confirmed by a spokesman for the tycoon, will underline ongoing tensions between commercial landlords and tenants more than nine months after the COVID-19 crisis erupted.

Caffe Nero’s CVA was approved by creditors last month, and will be implemented unless the challenge is successful.

One disgruntled landlord described the restructuring as “a sham” and said it appeared that board members were conflicted by virtue of their status as shareholders in the company.

Caffe Nero’s directors refused to adjourn the CVA vote despite the eleventh-hour emergence of EG’s takeover bid – a refusal contested in court documents.

In a statement this weekend, a Caffe Nero spokesman said: “We are aware a challenge has been filed by a small number of landlords at what appears to be the instigation of a third party.

“We still firmly believe the terms of the CVA, which passed with over 90% support, are in the best interests of all our creditors and we will openly engage with any landlord who wishes to discuss it further.

“We intend to defend the challenge vigorously.

“In the meantime, we remain focussed on managing the business through the current Covid-19 enforced trading restrictions, and re-growing our sales in the months and years ahead.”

As part of the CVA, Mr Ford has pledged £5m to a ‘survival fund’ aimed at withstanding any renewed escalation of the coronavirus crisis as it braces itself for a legal challenge from landlords.

Caffe Nero employs more than 5,000 people and trades from hundreds of stores across the UK.

Like rivals such as Pret a Manger, Caffe Nero has been heavily impacted by the reduced footfall in city centres as millions of Britons continue to work from home.

Pret and Costa Coffee, which is owned by The Coca-Cola Company, have been among the sector’s big players forced to make substantial redundancies since the start of the pandemic.

EG declined to comment.

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