
J-Star exits Japanese document scanning business to Orix
Mid-market private equity firm J-Star has exited its entire holding in Japanese document scanning company Primagest to local financial services conglomerate Orix Corporation.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. According to a statement, Orix will acquire 100% of the company. J-Star held a 66% stake at the time of an investment of unspecified size in 2013. The GP first invested by acquiring a position of about 35% earlier the same year for JPY498 million ($4.4 million).
The company was valued at $82.5 million at the time of a buyout backed by Jafco in 2002. It listed on JASDAQ in 2006 and was privatized in a second buyout backed by CMC Capital in 2009. Value-add measures implemented during the J-Star holding period included help with a leadership transition, organization of an overseas expansion effort and growth of the company’s business process outsourcing (BPO) operations.
Founded as Recognition Equipment Incorporated in 1968, Primagest claims to be one of the first companies to sell large-scale equipment for converting printed information into machine-encoded text. The company specializes in various areas of document digitization, including high-speed scanning, data processing, fault correction and BPO-related system development and maintenance services.
Orix is expected to help the company grow by leveraging its business efficiency competencies and supporting M&A activity with potentially synergistic competitors. Primagest recorded revenue of JPY11.6 billion in 2012.
The BPO market is said to be worth about JPY3.7 trillion and growing at around 2% a year as personnel shortages and workplace reforms put pressure on business efficiency requirements. Meanwhile, Japan typically ranks as one of the leading consumers of paper globally due to a cultural preference for hard copy documents in business transmissions.
J-Star targets control and co-control investments in companies with valuations of JPY3-10 billion, typically writing equity checks of JPY1-3 billion. It closed its third Japan-focused buyout fund earlier this year at a hard cap of JPY32.5 billion, beating the initial target of JPY30 billion.
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