Jan 5 (Reuters) - U.S.-headquartered Centerview Partners

is becoming more open to exploring its options, including

selling a stake in the boutique bank firm to an outside investor

or going public, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The firm has recently received interest from big investors,

the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

A transaction could also assuage the bank's roughly 80

partners, including a handful who are near or past the age of 60

and would likely welcome an opportunity to sell their shares,

the WSJ said.

"I never wanted to think about anything around monetization

until the firm was broad enough to be stable enough,

irrespective of the environment," its co-founder Blair Effron

told the Journal.

Effron and his co-founder, Robert Pruzan, cautioned that the

newly adopted stance does not guarantee the bank will do a deal

soon, especially given that it is doing well as is, the Journal

said.

Centerview did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request

for comment.

The bank last year advised Capital One on its $35

billion-plus acquisition of Discover Financial Services ( DFS )

and Paramount Global's ( PARAA ) special committee on its merger

with David Ellison's production company Skydance.

With offices in the U.S. and UK, Centerview provides advice

on mergers and acquisitions, financial restructurings, and other

areas to companies, institutions, and governments. According to

its website, the bank has advised on over $4 trillion of

transactions since its founding in 2006.