Europe's biggest initial public offering this year has lifted the new issue market as Autoroutes du Sud de la France, the French motorways operator, attracted the strongest demand for a French IPO since 1999.

Last week's offer from Xstrata, the Swiss mining company, also met strong demand and increased in size from £650m (€1.1bn) to £980m, while the first new issue to hit the Neuer Markt for 10 months - an IPO for Repower Systems, a wind energy firm - was five times covered.