Two and a half months after acquiring Bank Severnaya Kazna’s controlling shareholding, Alfa-Bank offered the first loan to Bank Severnaya Kazna’s business customer. Alfa-Bank went through with the controlling shareholding’s purchase on November 30, 2008. The spokesperson for the bank reports the loan (needed to build up on the company’s floating assets) was given to one of Yekaterinburg-based trading firms.

URSA Bank made a total of 3.5 billion RUR worth of interest yield payments to its investors last year; these figures exceeded those for a year earlier (that is, 2.6 billion RUR) by one quarter. The better part of the payments was made in the summer and fall, since the bank’s depositors were apparently interested in saving up for a vacation or an apartment remodeling. ‘Our Magnificent Seven, Special, and Guaranteed Income deposit types were last year’s favorites. The terms of these deposits provide a combination of trouble-free savings and an impressive profit. What is more, a customer can top

Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation still hasn’t been able to cope with the arrears of wages in full. The enterprise’s employees say they only got their wages for December 2008, whereas their January pay is still pending. In addition, the company gave up on its welding engineering sector for the time being, while a number of production shops have been switched to shorter hours. In the meantime, the recent checks completed by the public prosecution authorities revealed that Yekaterinburg-based Uralmashzavod had over 60 million RUR worth of wage arrears, the spokesperson for the Russian

Malakhit Company made the decision to sell a set of restaurants located at 36 Malyshev St. in Yekaterinburg, the company’s press officer said to an UrBC reporter. The set comprises three places: Gradara, Pivnoy Bar’on, and Grand Buffet restaurants and Divan, the night club. ‘This measure is expected to give us some additional resources that will allow the company to keep the rest of the business, including a fast food chain that we run,’ Malakhit’s press officer explained. ‘The economic downfall that started in August 2008 made the lion’s share of our generally loyal customers give up on

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) carried out a scheduled inspection of a foundry based in Kamensk-Uralskiy. Ten environmental violations were detected in the course of the inspection, so the company will now have to pay 150,000 RUR in fines. A 10,000-ruble fine was imposed on the business for violating the water use regulations, a 40,000-ruble one – for violating the open air protection rules, and a 100,000-ruble one – for violating the rules of waste treatment, the spokesperson for the regional division of Rosprirodnadzor says. In addition to