Hitachi Consulting Acquires Singapore Based Consulting Firm - Stone Apple Solutions, including their subsidiaries, Vietnamese-based Global CyberSoft (GCS) and Brazil-based F2C Consultoria

-- This strategic acquisition will further strengthen Hitachi Consulting's ability to deliver a complete range of technology implementation and outsourcing services while expanding capabilities in the growing South East Asian and Brazilian markets.

SINGAPORE, Oct. 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Hitachi Consulting, the global management consulting and IT services business of Hitachi Ltd., today announced that it has acquired Stone Apple, a specialist in Enterprise Applications, Embedded Systems, Business Intelligence & Analytics, Enterprise Content & Integration and Managed Services. The acquisition will help to advance Hitachi Consulting's capability to deliver measurable, sustainable business results for clients in each of these areas and will expand Hitachi Consulting's presence in South East Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, as well as provide a strong foundation in Brazil.

Stone Apple is one of Singapore's fastest-growing technology consulting companies, helping clients drive business transformation and achieve business goals through effective implementation of technology solutions. With over 1500 employees in 9 countries, Stone Apple works with clients to deliver complex global projects in the Financial Services, Utilities, Manufacturing, Education, Healthcare and Public sectors.  To support this level of growth over its short 5 year existence, Stone Apple has partnered with blue chip investors such as SBI Islamic Fund (Brunei), OSK Ventures International Bhd, Philip Asia Pacific Opportunity Fund and Continuum Capital (Malaysia), a fund managed by First Floor Capital.

"We are very excited about the acquisition of Stone Apple. They are an excellent enterprise application and analytics services provider with strong expertise in Oracle and SAP technologies. They successfully leverage their deep industry and domain experience to enable technology adoption across complex global engagements.  We have been looking for a strong partner in the fast-growing Asia Pacific and Latin American markets and Stone Apple is a great fit for our organization.   We look forward to the opportunity to better serve our global clients through the added depth and breadth that Stone Apple brings," said Phil Parr, President and CEO of Hitachi Consulting.

"Stone Apple was founded on the philosophy of delivering on its promises to add tangible value to our client businesses through technology and optimal business processes. We pride ourselves on having achieved global reach with local expertise in both Asia and South America," said its founders, Madhujeet Chimni and Bharadwaj Chivukula, CEO and COO, respectively, for the Stone Apple Group of Companies.  "Hitachi Consulting clearly shares that same passion and we look forward to now bringing together the talented people of Stone Apple with those of Hitachi Consulting to build on this capability and to develop a market leading position in our field," added Ricardo Nunes, the Managing Director in Brazil.

About Hitachi Consulting Corporation
As Hitachi, Ltd.'s global consulting company, with operations throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Hitachi Consulting is a recognized leader in delivering proven business and IT strategies and solutions to Global 2000 companies across many industries. With a balanced view of strategy, people, process and technology, we work with companies to understand their unique business needs, and to develop and implement practical business strategies and technology solutions. From business strategy development through application deployment, our consultants are committed to helping clients quickly realize measurable business value and achieve sustainable ROI.

Hitachi Consulting serves clients in over 50 countries and offers deep consulting & IT expertise and global scale through approximately 5,000 professionals across 21 countries including global delivery centers in India (Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad), China (Guangzhou), Portugal (Lisbon) and the United States (Fargo, North Dakota and College Station, Texas). For more information, visit www.hitachiconsulting.com.

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About Hitachi, Ltd.
Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer society's challenges with our talented team and proven experience in global markets. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2013 (ended March 31, 2014) totaled 9,616 billion yen ($93.4 billion). Hitachi is focusing more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes infrastructure systems, information & telecommunication systems, power systems, construction machinery, high functional materials & components, automotive systems, healthcare and others. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com.