in 2000 and 2001 the fund returned 25% in 2002. Until July 2003 it grew by nearly one-third since March and in total the fund was up by about 60% since the start in 1994. In 2003 PKN Orlen had the chance to acquire 500 filling stations in Northern Germany from BP under premise of an anti-competition rule when BP took over Aral. As of 2007 PKN Orlen has 581 filling stations in Germany (484 under the Star brand, 58 under the Orlen brand and 29 under a supermarket brand). In January 2003 PKN Orlen and MOL signed a Memorandum of Understanding whereby they agreed intention to initiate co-operation in the Central and Eastern European oil sector. They hoped that the collaboration would allow them both to benefit from the synergies and to compete more effectively in the global competition. In July 2003 the Croatian INA refinery was sold for $505 million to PKN Orlen's competitor, the Hungarian oil company MOL. This strengthen MOL's position in the battle for control of Central Europeans and Balkan fuel markets. Furthermore, PKN Orlen was involved in merger talks with MOL Group in 2005. If merged, the two firms would have created a regional giant, and controlled much of Central Europe's oil industry. However, the planned merger failed due to high politicization. Following the dropped merger plans, PKN Orlen bought a majority stake in Czech Unipetrol. During May 2006, the company announced its largest investment ever when it took over a majority share of 84.3% of Lithuania's Mažeikių Nafta, the largest company in the Baltic states. It was partly bought from Yukos (53.7%) and partly from the Lithuanian government (30.6%) in December. Earlier on 12 October a fire damaged the Mažeikių refinery, which caused a loss about $75 million. With the completion of the takeover, PKN Orlen became Central Europe's largest company. In May 2007 after Lithuania sold its refinery to PKN Orlen, Russian government approved the construction of a new $2 billion pipeline, that passes Belarus and Lithuania. In 2007 the unit of Polish oil group PKN Orlen PKNA.WA and Dwory Chemicals bought a synthetic rubber company Kaucuk from Czech oil group Unipetrol UNPEsp.PR. The sale was part of a drive by Unipetrol to divest non-core assets and to focus on petrochemical, oil refinery and fuel retailing business. In 2010 PKN Orlen had a reported revenue of $28.8 billion. Next year it was