Athlone to Rebrand as APIO

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL--(Marketwired - Oct. 30, 2014) - Athlone Investments Limited ("Athlone", "APIO" or the "Company") (TASE:ATLN)(ATLN:IT) will shortly change its name and in future will trade under the name APIO Limited. The Company awaits a general meeting where this step will be approved. The change in name marks the fundamental change in its business (it was formerly a holding company for homeland security technology companies). Following the recent acquisition of the Mozambican telecommunications operator called Vaninga & Investimentos Limitada, it will in future be focused on the development of an African data centre network. APIO (from the Latin 'to connect' ) underpins the new focus on connecting African businesses and consumers to the Internet. In conjunction with this rebranding is the launch of the new website where the URL is www.apio.net and which will be live in the next few days.

APIO holds a controlling stake in Vaninga which amongst other things is licenced to build and operate data centers in Mozambique. It has recently broken ground at the first site in Maputo.

The site, which is in Matola, a leafy suburb of Maputo, is well situated for access to both utility power as well as connectivity to all of the major Telco's and Seacom the Pan African undersea cable provider. Vaninga plans to expand its data centre network in Mozambique to other major centres such as Beira and those serving the rapidly expanding oil and gas supply networks in Pembe and Tete. The Company has already received expressions of interest from corporate and other customers which will account for the full capacity of the first phase.

APIO plans to move beyond the traditional data centre model of providing hosting and co-location by adding suites of virtual and storage servers and offering Cloud and Virtualisation services. There is a dearth of data centre supply in Mozambique (and Africa generally), and the Company wishes to capitalize on this market opportunity which it believes will grow as smart phones replace second generation mobile phones and the appetite in Africa for data services such as video and audio streaming matches global trends. The other drivers of growth will be demographic factors such as urbanization, high population growth rates and a growing young population, as well as increased global investment in Africa. Economic growth rates in Africa are expected to be the highest in the World over the next decade.

APIO has ambitions to move beyond Mozambique next year once it has established operations there and is already exploring opportunities in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries.

About APIO

APIO's (formerly Athlone Investments Ltd.) subsidiary Vaninga & Investimentos Limitada is a Mozambican telecommunications operator licensed to provide a full range of fixed and wireless services nationally. It will focus on the provision of carrier neutral data center services which are in very short supply in Mozambique and in Sub Saharan Africa generally. The Company will launch services in Maputo in the early new year and have already received expressions of interest for the full capacity of rack space available.

In addition to traditional data centre services such as hosting and co-location, Vaninga plans to provide, a range of Cloud based services such as Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service, virtual servers, secure storage and media streaming. Its customers include banks, telecommunications operators, Government, SME's and Consumers.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Israeli securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding the Company's business model. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and other risks of the industry. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.