The Expert-Ural magazine has recently published its Expert-Ural 400 rating that features the Urals’ top 400 companies ranked on the basis of their sales figures in 2006. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was rated the 4th among Ural-West Siberian Region’s largest banks and the 1st among the banks located in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk Regions. The bank’s sales volume reached 3,314,400,000 RUR last year, which is 42.4% better than in 2005.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 16.73% (from 122.011 million RUR to 101.6 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Tagilbank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 31 to 90 days went down by 100% (from 26.25 million RUR to zero) in January-October 2007.

UC RUSAL coordinated some social project workshops for teachers and schoolchildren who live in Sverdlovsk Region’s cities and towns where the company’s enterprises are based, UC RUSAL’s local press officer Roman Lukichev reports. The workshops in Kamensk-Uralskiy, Severouralsk, and Krasnoturinsk were organized by the company’s Social Welfare Projects Center; the workshops were conducted by some experienced coaches from Tyumen Development Fund, a charity organization. The coaches spoke on the aims and challenges of a social project and walked the participants through the process of writing a

One of SKB-Bank’s offices located in Urai, Tyumen Region, offered its first loan to a small business, that is, to an owner of a store that sells furs and premium quality women’s wear. The borrower says he needs a loan to be able to buy a new fall/winter collection. 'SKB-Bank’s Urai office was only opened a few days ago, yet we have already been able to feel the great demand our services are enjoying here,’ the office manager Vyacheslav Yakovlev reports. SKB-Bank now has nine offices and subsidiaries in Tyumen Region (including Yugra and Yamal) all in all.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralfinance Commercial Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 91 to 180 days went down by 30.27% (from 17.9 million RUR to 12.482 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

'A holding of URSA Bank’s shares that Troika Dialog has recently acquired only makes it a minority shareholder and offers the company no substantial control over the bank; however, Troika Dialog is definitely going to become a more influential expert and consultant,’ Finam Investment Bank’s analyst Vladimir Sergievskiy said to UrBC. 'URSA Bank has been doing business with Troika Dialog for a while now; their latest success story involved going through with two preference share issues in 2006 and 2007 that made URSA Bank’s capital rise by $488m. I think Troika Dialog is interested in

Klyuchevsk Ferrous Alloys Works’ net profit volume went down by 37% in July-September 2007, the company’s quarterly report states. Profits dropped from 86,009,046 RUR in the second quarter of the year to 54,009,575 RUR in the third quarter, which means the figures decreased by 31,009,471 RUR over the course of three months. The company explains this was due to a decrease in output and sales of ferrotitanium; this, in its turn, was brought about by plummeting global prices, plenty of titanium scrap accumulated all over the world, and noticeably less favorable ferrotitanium market opportunities

Uralmash Engineering (Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation’s daughter eEnterprise) developed a new division called O&G Drilling Machinery. The spokesperson for the corporation reports the creation of a new division came as a response to Russian oil-and gas companies’ increased need for drilling equipment. ‘The drilling machinery market growth means Uralmash must go back to designing and producing this machinery. We used to produce hundreds of rigs a year, and these are still used in the Far North, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Now we are busy employing more skilled workers, and our

Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy met the Kingdom of Denmark’s Embassy in Russia’s counselor for trade and economic relations to discuss the upcoming introduction of a Danish trade mission in Yekaterinburg as well as the prospects of some mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of trade and investment, the spokesperson for the city council reports. The counselor said most of the process technicalities will have been settled by the end of this year, and the trade mission will probably start operating at the beginning of 2008. Mr. Chernetskiy said he was prepared to provide all