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OPAP public lottery is the most profitable company in Greece for 2008, announced ICAP Group in its rank list for 500 leading Greek companies. OPAP takes the first place with annual profit of over €1.5 billion. OPAP president Hristos Hadziemanuil has the fame of being one of the most important golden boys of the Greek state administration and he is also e close friend with PM Kostas Karamanlis.

In the TOP 10 there are also 5 banks, three telecommunication companies and the Greek National Electric company (NEC). With annual profit of €779 million, the second place is taken by the mobile operator Cosmote. Third is OTE with profit a bit over €777 million. The second biggest Greek mobile operator Vodafone is on number six. The five banks are – National Bank of Greece, Cyprus Bank, Alpha Bank, Marfin Popular Bank and Eurobank. All together those banks take up 44% of the bank sector profit in Greece. On number ten is the Greek NEC.

ICAP Group is the biggest Greek organization for business analysis, which has offices in 5 Greek cities and branches in Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia. The agency processes data for over 3 million institutions, out of which 500 000 are in Greece. The rest 2.5 million are in Bulgaria, Romania and in Serbia. In this year’s analysis the agency stresses that the business has been developing in a very adverse business environment. On a global scale the GDP growth has fallen from 5.2% in 2007 to 3.2% in 2008. In Greece the GDP growth has fallen from 4% in 2007 to 2.9% in 2008.