OREANDA-NEWS. March 16, 2016. Global alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) today announced that it has agreed to acquire a 100% stake in WingArc1st, a provider of Enterprise Output Management (EOM) software and Business Intelligence (BI) software, from its President and CEO Hiroyuki Uchino and OPI2002 Investment Fund, a subsidiary of ORIX Corporation. The acquisition is expected to close in April 2016 and equity for the transaction will come from Carlyle Japan Partners III, L.P., an investment fund advised by Carlyle Japan L.L.C.

Headquartered in Tokyo, WingArc1st helps enterprise users make effective use of their internal data by providing software license and maintenance support, with products such as EOM software “SVF” as well as BI software “Dr. Sum EA” and “MotionBoard”. The company’s core products “SVF” and “Dr. Sum EA” have top shares in their respective markets in Japan. WingArc1st regards the increasing penetration of cloud computing in the Japanese software market as an important business opportunity, and has started providing “SVF Cloud” and “MotionBoard Cloud”, both of which are new services designed for cloud computing environments.

Kazuhiro Yamada, Managing Director of Carlyle Japan L.L.C., said, “WingArc1st can drive business expansion by leveraging its prominent position in the Japanese EOM and BI software markets. We highly value the leadership of the management team led by Mr. Hiroyuki Uchino, the company’s strong position in the Japanese software market and its growth potential. Carlyle is fully committed to offering our global network and industry insights in supporting WingArc1st to become the best solution services provider in the cloud computing era.”

Mr. Hiroyuki Uchino said, “To help enterprise users make effective use of their information has been our primary business objective. We have contributed to the success of our enterprise users by providing exceptional software solutions for building and operating information systems. As cloud computing becomes more pervasive, it will transform the way Japanese enterprises develop and operate information systems. As such, we will leverage Carlyle’s global experience and network in the information technology sector to expand our existing businesses and further develop cloud-based services to enhance our information solutions platform.”