(Bloomberg) -- J.C. Flowers & Co, the U.S. investment and financial services-focused private equity firm, is reviving plans for a potential sale of its French loan insurance broker Financiere CEP, according to people familiar with the matter.

The firm is considering various exit options for CEP, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

A sale could value the company at about 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion), the people said. Deliberations are at an early stage, no final decisions have been made and there is no certainty the discussions will lead to a transaction, they said.

If J.C. Flowers goes ahead with a sale it could start a formal auction process in the coming months, the people said.

A representative for J.C. Flowers declined to comment.

J.C. Flowers previously considered a sale of the business in 2017, Bloomberg reported. At that time, the unit was valued at more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion).

J.C. Flowers acquired Cie. Europeenne de Prevoyance, as Financiere CEP was then known, from PAI Partners in 2011 for 842 million euros. The company’s chairman and founder Hubert Guillard and its management team reinvested alongside J.C. Flowers.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dinesh Nair in London at dnair5@bloomberg.net;Myriam Balezou in London at mbalezou@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dinesh Nair at dnair5@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Fournier

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