Cosmote buys 42% of Germanos shares

Greek mobile operator Cosmote announced on Tuesday the purchase of 42 percent of the shares belonging to phone accessory retailer Germanos, at the price of 19 Euros/share. The total value of the deal will reach 1.58 billion Euros.

Cosmote intends to purchase the rest of the shares by the end of August 2006. The deal does not bring any changes to the top management structure, hence Panos Germanos, the founder and main stake holder of Germanos SA, will keep the chief position and will reinvest in Germanos 10 percent of the Cosmote’s purchase price.

Germanos operates 950 stores in seven countries. The company emerged on the Romanian market in 1996, and founded Germanos Telecom Romania in 2000. The company has a network of 100 retail outlets throughout the country and will extend to 135 by the end of the year.

Germanos recorded a 97.8 million Euros from sale in 2005 and a profit of 4.9 million Euros.

The Greek group Cosmote boats 8.2 million customers in South-Eastern Europe. Cosmote Romania re-launched commercial operations in December 2005 and had 50,000 customers.