RBC.Rating reports SKB-Bank was one of Russia’s Top 100 most profitable banks on October 1, 2008. The bank scored the 60th position in the rating. According to RBC.Rating, SKB-Bank’s profits amounted to 538.1 million RUR in January through September 2008, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 36.5% and thus secured the bank’s promotion in the rating by as many as twenty-two positions up.

Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) shipped 3,227,000 tons of steel pipes to its customers last year, which was 5% better than the year before. Excluding the contribution made by TMK IPSCO, TMK shipped 2,738,000 tons of produce to its customers, which falls short of the figures for 2007 by 11%. The company explains this had to do with a decrease in the seamless pipe production at Taganrog Metallurgical Plant in January-September 2008 because of having to stop using some obsolete machinery and installing the new PQF mill. ‘Besides, our large-diameter pipe shipments dropped by 38.6% because some

VUZ-Bank’s net profit plummeted by 286.657 million RUR, or 295.43% in the last quarter of 2008. In the third quarter of the year, for instance, the bank made 97.03 million RUR worth of net profit, while its net loss came to 189.627 million RUR in the fourth quarter of 2008. The bank reports this decrease in the net profit has been brought about by the 233.78-million-ruble increase in debt reserves.

URSA Bank reports the company came up with a special buy-out program for its own debt obligations. According to this program, the bank intends to buy its Eurobonds issued by URSA Finance Plc (formerly known as Sibacademfinance Plc.). This issue’s nominal volume comes to ?400m; the bank went through with the bond issue in May 2007, and these are to be retired in May 2010; the coupon interest rate was determined at 7% a year. URSA Bank is planning to buy its bonds on the market or through a number of private transactions. URSA Bank’s Managing Director John McNaughton notes the bank’s earlier

Having acquired the business, Probusinessbank now has to meet the claims laid by Bank24.ru’s customers. The latter, in its turn, used to handle the payment transactions of a pyramid scheme that collapsed about two years ago, Kommersant reports. For one, Moscow Arbitration Court accepted the claim laid by a Yekaterinburg dweller Sergey Khlopov against Global Gaming Expo (GGE), its founder Alexei Kalinichenko, and Bank24.ru. Khlopov insists on declaring invalid the agreements he signed with the defendants because of GGE’s proclaimed insolvency. In the meantime, financially, Khlopov’s claim will