Intel, TPG in early talks to sell McAfee to Thoma Bravo - source

(Reuters) - Private equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC is in early talks to buy security software company McAfee from TPG Capital and Intel Corp <INTC.O>, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Talks are at an early stage and there is no guarantee they will lead to a deal, the source said. The talks were reported earlier by CNBC.

Intel and TPG declined to comment, while Thoma Bravo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Intel, which paid $7.7 billion (£6.12 billion) for California-based McAfee in 2011, completed the sale of a 51 percent stake https://www.reuters.com/article/us-intel-mcafee-sale/intel-to-spin-out-security-unit-sell-stake-in-business-to-tpg-idUSKCN11D2MY in the company to TPG at a $4.2 billion enterprise value last year.

Thoma Bravo has been seeking to rapidly consolidate the cyber security sector.

In October, it announced a $2.1 billion acquisition of Imperva Inc <IMPV.O> and last month announced the acquisition of another cyber security firm called Veracode from Broadcom Inc <AVGO.O> for $950 million.

Last month, Reuters reported that Thoma Bravo had approached Symantec Corp <SYMC.O> with a takeover offer.

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin in New York and Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; editing by Grant McCool)