Private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC is exploring a sale of Deltek Inc that it hopes will value the U.S. provider of software to government contractors at as much as $3 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

A sale of Deltek would underscore the popularity of companies that help automate administrative operations. Earlier on Thursday, Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) said it would buy NetSuite Inc (N.N), a cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) company, for $9.3 billion.

Thoma Bravo is working with financial advisers, including investment bank JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), on a sale process for Deltek, the people said this week, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE