by Violetta Simeonova

In spite of numerous disappointing attempts over the years to enter the market of Bulgarian telecommunications and the Sports Lotto, Socrates Kokkalis has not given Bulgaria up completely. The Greek billionaire has again discovered opportunities to invest in this country.
This became clear on Monday, when the president of Intracom had lunch and talked with a group of Bulgarian journalists, who were specially brought to Athens for this purpose.

The wealth and the business empire of Kokkalis are roughly estimated at 4 billion US dollars. The magnate is not in the league of Bill Gates,
but he is not so far from it either. The owner of Olympiakos has IT and telecommunications business spreading over four continents. After acquiring the US software company Conklin Corporation, he intends to open offices in China in September.
Kokkalis divides his time between Athens, Boston and a number of other places in the world, where he owns houses and real estate. Then what could be the reasons prompting this super rich and busy man to take such personal and flattering care to raise his image in the Bulgarian media? (He refuses to give interviews, but spent more than one hour talking to the reporter of 24 Hours, on condition that there is no tape-recording.)
First, Intracom is a might be unclear word in Bulgaria, but in Greece it opens doors that are normally jammed. The company`s profit (before taxes) was 108 million Euro in 2000. The anticipated profit for this year is 130 million Euro. A total of 7,000 people work for the empire and the group`s exports travel to 43 countries in the world.

The factories of Intracom on Athens are high-tech parks par excellence in the outskirts of the megapolis. There, in air-conditioned halls, hundreds of young Greek men and women in white overalls are diligently assembling the relatively latest version of telecommunications equipment. Just in the same way as this is done by their peers in Silicone Valley. The average annual salary of the experts of Kokkalis (including bonuses) exceeds 50-60 thousand US dollars.
Second, although Bulgaria is not the center of the Universe, the bad business of Intracom in this country is preventing the company from closing the circle of its swelling investments in the region. Intracom is well ahead in Romania, where it has a large factory. The Greeks are well represented in Hungary and Cyprus, and are very carefully looking at Albania.

In Bulgaria the company holds 66% of the joint venture Bulfon, and the unresolved case of the Bulgarian Sports Lotto has been hanging in the air since 1995, when BST was sentenced to pay to Intracom 6.4 million US dollars plus interest. At present the debt of the Lotto has reached 10 million dollars, Kokkalis informs. However, he does not intend to collect this debt, expecting instead to reach an agreement with the management, whoever they may be.

The billionaire intends to form several new joint ventures in Bulgaria. Apparently his business sense has suggested to him that after the launching of the second GSM operator, in view of the forthcoming liberalization of telecommunications and the possible privatization of the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company, the sector will become livelier and the market will be very interesting. As all extremely successful and experienced businessmen, Kokkalis is very plastic and cautious, never giving direct answers to questions. He will obviously wait for the new Cabinet to be formed and to see its first steps, then he will test the business climate through personal meetings in September, and only then he will make his final decision about what and how much he is going to do in Bulgaria, and how.
For the time being, it is only clear that he wishes to benefit from the IT talent of young Bulgarians. He intends to join again the competition for the Lotto. He wishes to sell telecommunications equipment here and will offer his know-how in the sphere of software projects for the tax administration, the financial system and special security.

He is categorical in his claim that he has no interest in GSM licenses. Kokkalis is even more slippery when political subjects are raised. He prefers not to reveal his earlier relations with the Bulgarian ruling circles. About the scandal with the Sports Lotto, Mr. Kokkalis specifies: `With each new government we started the negotiations from scratch and I hope that we shall be able to resolve this issue by the end of the century.`

When asked why his business in Bulgaria did not go well, he counters with another question: `And why Bulgarian voters did not elect any of the parties that ruled so far?` When asked whether he has given money to Bulgarian political parties, he counters: `Doesn`t it show that we have not?` He does not comment on his alleged contacts with Zhan Videnov and the circle around him. He has not met Kostov and claims that he has no friends among Bulgarian politicians.

Mr. Kokkalis demonstrates abundant interest in the King and cautiously assumes that his rule would be positive, `because he is a person who has grown up in and has lived under the conditions of a market economy, and he knows its rules.`

About his ill fame in Bulgaria, fed by rumors, publications and accusations of links with and financing by the German STASI, Kokkalis explains that some of his Greek competitors have done quite a lot of work. Generally speaking, Kokkalis is a Greek Slavcho Hristov, a Bulgarian diplomat who turned up at the meeting unexpectedly assured me playfully. The magnate benefited both from his links with PASOK and from his personal acquaintance with Konstantinos Mitsotakis, and his business flourished legitimately. Whatever the truth may have been about the hat full of stolen money back in 1977, when the Company was established, the picture now is very different. Kokkalis has chosen a new strategy: openness and accessibility for the media, transparency, a civilized approach in his relations and in the selection of personnel, analysis and careful study of the situation. His `foreign minister` is the actual former Labor Minister Niki Tzavella. Leading a brilliant team of Harvard graduates, she is developing the links with every country in the region. Through the Kokkalis Foundation the team is organizing conferences, paying scholarships, sending young politicians and specialists to study at Harvard, and has created a brain trust to explain who is doing what and to specify what is the meaning of this or that in the country where they are entering, so as to avoid performances of the `bull in a china shop` type. This refined approach has probably been set in motion for Bulgaria as well.