The international rating agency Standard & Poor's reconsidered the rating outlook of Russian Bank Uralsib from Negative to Stable; the bank’s long-term and short-term contractor ratings were affirmed at B+ and B, respectively. The new rating outlook indicates that the bank’s financial performance has been experiencing less market pressure lately due to the gradual improvement of working conditions at home. Uralsib cut down on the transactions with the related parties and the quality of its assets tends to be improving now. The pressure on the bank’s liquidity isn’t as strong as it

This Kurgan Region-based enterprise might not be able to deliver a number of upgraded combat vehicles, which the Russian airborne troops are now switching to, to the army due to financial reasons, head of troops Vladimir Shamanov told RIA Novosti. According to this military official, the rearmament of the troops is being carried out in strict accordance with the set regulations. First of all, this involves upgrades of our BMD-1 (combat vehicles 1), BMD-2, and Nonnas, the self-propelled guns, through automation,’ the General said. However, the problem relating to fulfilling the state defense

Bank CIT Finance BOD approved of the terms of the agreement the bank is to sign with Bank VTB 24 regarding the sale of the bulk of its mortgage portfolio. The portfolio amounts to 34bn RUR. The agreement will probably be completed before the end of 2011 through a transfer of mortgages to Bank VTB 24 in several stages. All the money thus obtained will be directed to paying the bank’s creditors, namely, the Deposit Insurance Agency State Corporation and Russian Railways Public Company,’ says Chairman of Bank CIT Finance BOD Yuri Novozhilov.

Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport’s Board of Directors was unable to decide on any recommendations to the stockholders regarding the scale and the payment of dividends for the year 2010. In the meantime, the annual general meeting took place the other day, the company reports.

The Dubai-Yekaterinburg flight by Flydubai that was called off the day before is now expected to arrive at 2:20 PM. The Yekaterinburg-Dubai flight is therefore expected to take off at 3:05 PM. The said flight was cancelled the other day. According to the airline representatives, the route between Dubai and Yekaterinburg turned out to be dangerous because of the volcanic ashes concentration in the air. We took the experts’ advice and cancelled the scheduled flight between Dubai and Yekaterinburg,’ the airline’s press officer reports.

MMK Group is expected to save over 9m RUR this year due to the energy-saving measures launched at the group’s enterprises in the first quarter of 2011. For one, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) runs programs on reducing energy spending every year. Most of the measures were targeted at saving electric power. These included replacing the older light bulbs with the new, energy-saving ones, installing new electrical machinery instead of the old power-hungry type, and improving on the production processes. In the course of one year, the savings will amount to nearly 1.8m kilowatt-hours,