The Russian Federation Federal Financial Market Service refused to register the report on the issue of certified non-convertible interest-bearing owner bonds of E.S. Yalamov Ural Mechano-Optical Plant Federal State Unitary Enterprise (series 02). Since not a single bond of the issue (registration number 4-02-00002-T as of December 18, 2008) has been placed so far, the issue was declared invalid and the Federal Financial Market Service decided to annul the issue’s state registration.

Ural Federal District’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) carried out several inspections of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport. Four violations of the existing laws have been detected in the course of these inspections, so the company was given orders to remove them and is going to face administrative liability, the spokesperson for Ural Federal District’s division of Rosprirodnadzor reports. The division also inspected ZAO Kamensk-Uralskiy Mine and revealed that the enterprise violated the water code, so the company received orders to deal with the problem and

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin announced to the local bankers that mortgages need to become more affordable. The executive said in the course of his visit to Kamensk-Uralskiy that he hoped to make the interest rate on mortgages drop to 11% a year. The Governor feels the region’s banks should also decrease the down payment to 10% of the total loan sum. In fact, Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev has already promised to make the interest rates go down. The president declared the rates should come to 6% to 8% a year. ‘We’ll keep on gradually reducing the interest rates on

A number of Alfa-Bank’s offices will be closed down in Yekaterinburg. For one, the bank’s Yekaterinburg-Kupecheskiy outlet (located in Greenwich shopping mall) will soon stop operating. The bank’s representatives say they need to cut down on the number of offices, even though Alfa-Bank enjoys popularity with the local dwellers. ‘The closing down of Yekaterinburg-Kupecheskiy is done within the framework of our front office-reduction program. This became necessary after Alfa-Bank acquired the former offices of Bank Severnaya Kazna,’ Alfa-Bank’s press service reports. A representative of

The international rating agency still keeps Evraz Group SA’s long-term Issuer Default Rating (B+) and priority non-secured rating (B+) on the Rating Watch list, with Negative Rating Outlook. The steel company’s short-term Issuer Default Rating has been affirmed at B, while the asset payback rating came to RR4. Fitch Ratings’ analysts explain the company keeps Negative outlook because it is still unclear whether Evraz will manage to get the funding needed to refinance its debts and pay them off in 2010 – 2011.