Citigroup Inc. is open to retaining a minority stake in its CitiFinancial unit and is offering partial financing to bidders for the consumer finance business, several sources familiar with the deal said.

The bidders, a handful of consortia consisting of more than 10 private equity firms, will need to come up with several billion dollars of financing to take over about $13 billion of CitiFinancial assets, the sources said.

Citigroup declined to comment. The sources are anonymous because the talks are not public.