SKB-Bank, one of Russia’s largest provincial banks and a major player on the Ural market, celebrated its 17th anniversary on November 2, 2007. The bank was founded on the basis of Sverdlovsk Region branch of Agroprombank on November 2, 1990. It has been Sverdlovsk Region Government’s authorized bank since February 1996. In 2001, SKB-Bank found a valuable strategic partner in Sinara Group; in 2007, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development became one of SKB-Bank’s shareholders. The volume of SKB-Bank’s assets rose from 2.6 billion RUR in 2002 to over 28 billion RUR in 2007; its loan

'A lawsuit against UralTransBank and Bank Severnaya Kazna regarding violation of antimonopoly laws has been filed and is soon to be processed in court. We are now busy collecting all the papers needed for the case. Should we need some more documents, there will probably emerge a court’s ruling suggesting that the two banks in question provide them,’ Deputy Head of Federal Antimonopoly Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division Sergey Volkov said to UrBC. The Service first took legal action against two Yekaterinburg-based banks in October 2007. UralTransBank and Severnaya Kazna were suspected

'The potential of AMUR car factory’s project related to assembling of ten- and twenty-ton dumpers is hard to gauge yet. We have to wait till we see at least one truck made by the factory before talking of the future of the project,’ the spokesperson for GAZ Group (the holding AMUR car factory is part of) said to a UrBC reporter. The factory is planning to assemble ten- and twenty-ton dumpers supplied by FAW, a Chinese enterprise. The project has been estimated to require $1m worth of investments. Some experts believe AMUR won’t be able to win any share of the Russian truck and dumper

According to the Expert Ural magazine (Vol. 40 (303)), Ural Treasures Bank was rated the Urals’ 16th largest bank in terms of asset volume in the first half of 2007: the bank’s assets amounted to 8,156 million RUR on July 1, 2007. It was also declared 20th largest bank in terms of ATM cash turnover, which means the bank was nicely promoted from the 11th position it was given in July 2006. In addition, Ural Treasures Bank became the Urals’ 25th largest bank in terms of business loan portfolio, 14th largest bank in terms of securities portfolio, 12th largest bank in terms of the volume of

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by TyumenEnergoBank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for up to 30 days went down by 59.1% (from 96.789 million RUR to 39.58 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

Volume of Concern Kalina’s net profit went down by 10% in January-September 2007 compared to a year earlier. The company’s net profit dropped from 372,581,000 RUR in January-September 2006 to 336,093,000 RUR (or by 36,448,000 RUR) in nine months of 2007.

'Rosaviation had every reason to impose sanctions on air carriers whose charter flights are delayed on regular basis. There is simply no other way to make these airlines take their contractual obligations seriously,’ Director of Inna Tour Travel Agency Inna Averyanova said to UrBC. Rosaviation’s sanctions touched upon the carriers whose charter flights kept getting delayed en masse during the summer period; the number of flights these companies were allowed to operate in the winter season was cut by 20%. VIM Avia, it turns out, was one of the unfortunate airlines. Ms Averyanova feels

The value of net assets of Energy - Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by 6.71% between October 29, 2007 and October 30, 2007. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 4,427,022.51 RUR on October 29, 2007 to 4,130,034.41 RUR on October 30, 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by VUZ Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for up to 30 days went down by 96.65% (from 31.268 million RUR to 1.048 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

Sredneuralsky Copper Smelting Plant reports its net loss rose by 818.4% in July-September 2007; the company’s net loss went up from 19.66 million RUR in the second quarter of 2007 to 160.901 million RUR, or by 141.241 million RUR, in the third quarter of the year.