‘The total area of Mega Family Shopping Center comes to 127,000 square meters, including the premises of IKEA that cover 26,000 square meters,’ Director of the center Michael Nilson announced at today’s press conference devoted to the upcoming opening ceremony (scheduled for October 7, 2006). According to Mr Nilson, there are still a number of operations that will not be completed before the due date, for instance, part of underground parking lot and 20 to 30 shops still have to be finally furbished and equipped.

Leonid Soloviev was appointed Head of Production Department of TGK-9 (heat and power generating company) in Sverdlovsk Region. Now the company’s management is two-fold, excluding the previously operating regional managing subsidiaries. The managerial layers now include special production departments that keep track of a particular region’s success, covering stations and heat networks. Vladimir Matasov is now the head of Production Department in Perm Region, and Yuriy Tseshkovskiy heads the Production Department in the Republic of Komi, reports the company’s spokesperson.

Tube and Pipe Metallurgical Company announced the results of its financial activity in the six months of 2006 according to the international accounting standards. The auditing was carried out by Ernst and Young Ltd. The company sold 1,462,200 tons of tubes and pipes, including 482,800 seamless oil country tubular goods (OCTG), and produced 1,108,800 tons of steel. The company’s consolidated return came to $1,576.34m, the prime cost of the goods sold amounted to $1,076.82m, the gross profit reached the point of $499.52m, EBITDA margin came to 24.9%, the net profit to $229.05m, reports the

Russian Managers Association and Kommersant Publishers drew up their seventh 1000 Most Professional Managers List based on ‘the best choose the best’ principle. This year, the General Director of Ural Airlines Sergey Skuratov has hit the list once again, which is already becoming a tradition. Besides, the list includes Kirill Skuratov, who got on the 200 Most Professional Commercial Directors list, and Financial Director Elena Ichkurina, who hit the Top 200 list in her respective category. Ural Airlines have recently hit the World’s Top 200 Leading Carriers rating, published by Airline

The company produced 225,800 tons of coal in September 2006, which only falls short of the figures for September 2005 by .6%. This includes 65,600 tons of coal extracted at Kapitalnaya mine and 25,300 tons coming from Komsomolskaya mine. The daylighting operations resulted in 422,000 cubic meters of coal (which amounts to 73.9% of the figures for September 2005). The company’s miners developed 380 meters (78.8% of the figures for the year earlier). The company shipped 20.8% less coal to consumers – the figure only came to 247,500 tons, the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative.

A veterans’ meeting devoted to the upcoming Senior Citizen’s Day was held on the premises of Zinc Plant of Chelyabinsk on September 28, 2006. The Assembly Hall hosted some 300 retired people (who had been employed by the plant), and General Director Vsevolod Geihmann addressed the audience with a speech, covering the current state of events at the plant and sharing the company’s development plans. ‘The plant has always been proud of its pensioners, and it was largely due to them that the company managed to reach the production and economic levels it did. We have been supporting and will try