Banking sources say they are confident that there will be bids for Cerba, the big French lab group.

L'Agefi, the French financial news service, reports that first round bids for Cerba, the big reference lab group, put up for auction by PAI, ends this week. It names the advisers as Natixis and JPMorgan. Reuters reports that PAI expects to receive two bids of around €1.8bn on December 8.