Cerberus, Flowers may re-enter Rock auction: sources

LONDON (Reuters) - Buyout funds Cerberus CBS.UL and JC Flowers have not ruled out re-entering the race to buy ailing bank Northern Rock Plc NRK.L after Britain smoothed financing for a deal, people familiar with the matter said.

The funds have, since Monday's financing announcement, had contact with government adviser Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and are mulling re-entering the process and submitting revised offers by the new deadline of February 4, the sources said on Tuesday.

Both funds still face issues that may discourage them from going ahead and submitting firm proposals, however.

They had been sidelined from the process last month when Britain focused on talks with Virgin Group and Olivant.

JC Flowers has previously said any payment to Northern Rock shareholders would be nominal, whereas Cerberus is only interested in parts of the bank rather than the whole business.

Northern Rock, Cerberus and JC Flowers declined to comment.

Britain set a two-week deadline for a private-sector rescue on Tuesday as it gave details of its plan to allow 24 billion pounds ($46.8 billion) of emergency funding to be converted to bonds backed by the government.

(Reporting by Mathieu Robbins and Steve Slater; Editing by David Holmes)