The German market has waited a long time since its last textbook initial public offering. Last week's €1.2bn ($1.6bn) flotation of Premiere, the German pay-TV operator, was more than 10 times subscribed, priced at the top of its range and saw the shares end their first day's trading at a respectable 13.5% premium.

However, before Premiere, the last IPO in Germany to price at the top of its bookbuilding range was a €6.05m deal from VCH Best-of-VC, an investor in venture capital funds, in May 2002. The last IPO of more than €100m where shares were issued at the highest end of the range was Deutsche Börse when it raised €1.1bn in 2001, according to Dealogic, the investment banking research provider.