Last year, the company opened some 60 new stores, up to 260 units. “Rental fees rose to a very high level, and we must be cautious. The strategy for this year does not include store closures. We will only do this for units that have no chance of making a profit or if we find a better location in the same area,” Blatsios added. The average investment in a store is estimated at some €60,000. Telecom operator Cosmote, owner of Germanos, plans to make the retail network more efficient. “We will launch a project to rationalize the retail chain. We will improve this in terms of sales and services. We will expand the network in 2009, but not excessively, because we already have sufficient coverage countrywide,” Cosmote Romania CEO, Stefanos Theocharopoulos, said. Speaking about the GSM retail market, Theocharopoulos said that both acquisitions and bankruptcies are possible, depending on risk exposure and the degree of indebtedness of companies.