Parmalat shares made a confident return to the stock market yesterday two years after the Italian food group's collapse, with suitors lining up and traders betting on a windfall from multi-billion-euro lawsuits.

"Parmalat is still a work in progress," administrator Enrico Bondi told analysts in Milan. "The bankruptcy administration absorbed a lot of our time. Now we can concentrate on our core business."

The shares closed at €3.03 on the Milan exchange - over three times their nominal value but off the day's high of €3.18 and below the €3.15 reference price set by the bourse on the basis of pre-market levels.

At those levels, Parmalat has a market value of €4.8 billion, almost three times its capitalisation before the crisis broke in December 2003.

The nominal value of Parmalat's 1.6 billion shares had been set at €1, with one share for every euro of recovered debt. Almost 18 per cent of those shares changed hands during the day.

"I had expected more interest on the first day of trade," said one Italian fund manager who declined to be named. "I imagine the coming days will give a better indication of where the stock will go and what real interest is."

Many investors are betting suits filed by Parmalat's bankruptcy administrators will result in payouts for the company and hefty dividends for shareholders.

Since its December 2003 slide into insolvency Parmalat has launched lawsuits claiming €13.1 billion in damages from former financial partners, many of them now shareholders after a debt-for-equity swap.

Parmalat has also filed claims for €7.46 billion from banks that arranged deals in the months preceding its collapse.

The company was last night reported to have broadened its legal battle against former financial partners, suing ratings agency Standard & Poor's for what sources familiar with the situation said were damages worth around €4 billion over giving giving it a credit rating that failed to reflect the food group's serious financial problems.

An S&P spokesman said: "We believe this claim is without merit and we will vigorously oppose it. The formation of rating opinion requires full and honest participation of the debt issuer.

"As we have noted before, we were repeatedly misled by the company and its advisers."

Parmalat was once considered one of Italy's best-known global brands, active in 32 countries from Australia to Venezuela.