Robert F. Smith and his Vista Equity Partners looks to acquire analytics firm Kantar

Reuters | Private equity fund Vista Equity Partners has emerged as 1 of 4 U.S. bidders vying for a majority stake in WPP’s data analytics firm Kantar, 2 sources close to the deal told reporters.

The world’s biggest advertising company and its adviser Goldman Sachs are hoping to wrap up the process in late June and have given Vista access to Kantar’s books to carry out due diligence checks, the sources said.

Vista, whose private-equity portfolio comprises of mostly software companies, bought U.S. technology firm Apptio last year in a US$1.94 billion cash deal.

Apptio provides cloud-based and hybrid business management software and its technology may fit well with Kantar, which specializes in brand and marketing communications research for some of the world’s largest advertisers.

However, 1 of the sources said Vista is looking to invest directly in Kantar and synergies with its portfolio companies would only be extracted at a later stage.

WPP declined to comment while Vista was not immediately available for comment.

Reuters reported on May 16 that Bain Capital, Apollo and Platinum had also been admitted to the final stages of the auction and were vying to secure control of Kantar.

Kantar is valued at about US$4.43 billion and generates about 15 percent of WPP’s overall sales. Its underlying sales slipped 2 percent last year to US$3.29 billion with operating profits down 14 percent to US$380 million.