Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year went down by 100% (from 10.95 million RUR to zero).

'Kupets, the supermarket chain store operating in Yekaterinburg, is willing to sell up to 50% of its shares to a portfolio investor,’ Falcon Advisers’ Managing Partner Igor Kovanov said to UrBC. 'We intend to find the potential buyer before the end of March 2008, while the transaction we believe is likely to go through by the end of June 2008,’ he added. 'We cannot come up with any precise evaluation of the share price yet, but I’d say something between $150-$220 sounds pretty close,’ Mr. Kovanov observed.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by UniCreditBank to natural persons for 91 to 180 days went down by 86.27% (from 8.07 million RUR to 1.108 million RUR).

'One of Sberbank of Russia’s strategic goals is to make banking services more accessible to the general public, which is why we kept on expanding our subsidiary network last year as well as tried to make the existing outlets more efficient,’ the spokesperson for Sberbank’s Ural branch reports. In 2007, the bank’s Ural division set up the record number of new offices, that is, twenty-four outlets, so the total number of offices reached 1,701. These included specialized small business support centers, mortgage lending centers, centers dealing in loans to private individuals, and a

'The bank’s direct financial losses stemming from one of its traders’ fraud have been estimated at 5bn. In addition, the fact that the bank lost one of its credit rating positions means it will grow .25% to .75% more expensive for them to borrow on the bonds market,’ Finam investment bank’s analyst Vladimir Sergievskiy said to UrBC. Societe Generale, France’s second largest bank, lost Ï4.9bn ($7.1bn) due to one of its traders’ gerrymandering related to European stock exchanges’ indices futures. An 80% decrease in the bank’s annual profit is expected. The bank owns a daughter enterprise

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in UralTransBank valid for 1 to 3 years dropped by 29.49% (from 450.965 million RUR to 317.983 million RUR).

Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works (part of Evraz Group) managed to lower its industrial accidents rate by 24% in January-December 2007, while the frequency of accidents went down by 19%. There was not a single fatal accident, either. These data were provided at the special extended meeting devoted to the company’s labor protection activity in 2007. The meeting was attended by executives from all of the enterprise’s departments. The spokesperson for Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works reports these improvements were possible due to meeting all the industrial safety regulations and

Ural Treasures Bank’s balance sheet total rose by 30% last year and reached 10,650 million RUR on January 1, 2008. The bank’s own funds grew by 30% as well and reached 811 million RUR on January 1, 2008. Their balance sheet profit came to 120.8 million RUR, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 1.5 times, the bank’s press officer reports. According to the Profile magazine’s 48th issue published on December 24, 2007, Ural Treasures Bank was one of Russia’s Top 200 banks in terms of net assets and was given the 162nd position in the rating. The bank has plenty of nice offers for both

The value of net assets of Energy – Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by 2.44% between January 25, 2008 and January 28, 2008. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 3,048,357.46 RUR on January 25, 2008 to 2,973,827.82 RUR on January 28, 2008.

SKB-Bank’s extraordinary general meeting took place on January 28, 2008. The majority of voters (99.998348%) decided to raise the bank’s authorized capital through an additional issue of 471,630,000 ordinary uncertificated registered shares with face value of 1 RUR each. In addition, the voters agreed to allow the shares to be sold for 3.7 RUR per share. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Sinara Group are the most likely buyers of this share issue.