According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Bank URALSIB to state-run for-profit organizations for 31 to 90 days went down by 100% (from 12 million RUR to zero) in January-March 2008.

The rental agreement Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg signed with the state says the airport must pay a certain fee (defined in Appendix 3 to the agreement) for using some state-run property on a monthly basis. As it happens, Koltsovo airport failed to make these payments, and the total sum of the debt has come to 206,424,458.54 RUR so far, the spokesperson for the Federal Property Management Agency (aka Rosimuschestvo) reports. ‘As the airport failed to pay its monthly fees, Rosimuschestvo’s Sverdlovsk Region division had to file a complaint with the court, demanding that their rental

A group of polar explorers came back from Vorkuta to Yekaterinburg on April 10, 2008. Fourteen Yekaterinburg dwellers returned from their journey to the Arctic Ocean targeted at exploring the little-known island of Langotango. At the moment, no information about this island can be found in any geographical reference books or on the Internet. All the data collected by the brave travelers are to be processed and offered to Russian scientific research centers, the spokesperson for Ural Airlines reports. According to Oleg Maiorov, who inspired and organized the expedition, there are still many

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralfinance Commercial Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 31 to 90 days dropped by 90.27% (from 53.95 million RUR to 5.25 million RUR) in January-March 2008.

The hearing of case А60-1122/08 Rosimuschestvo vs. Koltsovo airport (the regional division of the former being the plaintiff, the latter the defendant) has been postponed till April 29, 2008. Rosimuschestvo is planning to cancel the rental agreement it has with the airport regarding its premises. The court’s press officer reports this agreement involves renting of state-run property such as the airport apron, the runways, the aircraft parking areas and so on; the whole set’s balance sheet value has been estimated at 397,285,629 RUR.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Perviy Respublikanskiy Bank to sole traders despite overdraft plummeted by 100% (from 2.27 million RUR to zero) in January-March 2008.

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to private individuals for 181 days for 1 year went down by 19.88% (from 9.206 million RUR to 7.376 million RUR) in January-March 2008.

The Court of Yekaterinburg’s Leninskiy district sentenced Transglobal Airline’s top executive Mikhail Churkanov to twenty-seven months in prison. Given that the accused has already spent twenty-six months in detention, his term will be over in May 2008. Mikhail Churkanov was charged with large-scale fraud (Article 159 of Russian Criminal Code) after Mir Travel Company signed a contract with Transglobal in September 2005 regarding five charter flights the latter was supposed to have operated in the winter of 2005/2006. Mir’s customers were unable to leave Yekaterinburg for Salzburg on December

Forbes’ latest Global – 2000 rating features the world’s 2,000 largest corporations ranked on the basis of their revenues, profits, assets, and market capitalization. These four development indicators are believed to present an objective picture of a company’s affairs. The capitalization data pertained to February 29, 2008, while the other three figures covered the period of twelve months. In addition, the company had to sell its produce in the U.S. or have ADRs, sell its shares for at least $5 apiece and get at least $1bn in terms of revenues. The rating includes companies based in sixty

CIT Finance’s net loss came to 1.308 billion RUR in the first quarter of 2008, while the company made 2.9 billion RUR worth of profit only a year earlier and had 367.034 million RUR worth of revenues in the last quarter of 2007. This information has been provided by RBC.daily.

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of April 7, 2008, the share price of BCS Fund Index MICEX (BrokerCreditService Management Company) has gone down by 12.24% since the beginning of the year.

Based on the International Accounting Standards, URSA Bank’s assets reached 165.8 billion RUR last year, which was 1.5 times better than at the beginning of 2007. The bank’s own funds rose by 1.9 times and came to 28.7 billion RUR, while its profits amounted to 3.77 billion RUR, which exceeds the figures for a year earlier by 2.6 times. URSA Bank’s loan portfolio grew by 1.9 times in 2007, with the share of bad debt (with payments delayed for over ninety days) coming to 4.2% of the total portfolio value. At the same time, the bank’s reserves are capable of making up for this bad debt by 107%.

Sverdlovsk Region’s Court of Arbitration is to hear case А60-1122/08 Rosimuschestvo vs. Koltsovo airport (the regional division of the former being the plaintiff, the latter the defendant) on April 9, 2008. Rosimuschestvo is planning to cancel the rental agreement it has with the airport regarding its premises. The court’s press officer reports this agreement involves the renting of state-run property such as the airport apron, the runways, the aircraft parking areas and so on; the whole set’s balance sheet value has been estimated to come to 397,285,629 RUR.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Visa completed the bank’s certification procedure aimed at making the business a principal member of the payment system. The decision to thus promote the bank was taken by Visa International BOD based on the analysis of the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s activity, development, and achievements. In addition, the bank’s financial success was confirmed by PriceWaterHouseCoopers’s audit procedure and many leading agencies’ impressive ratings. The bank was declared financially stable and prepared technology-wise to become a

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by UralTransBank to state-run for-profit organizations for up to 30 days dropped by 100% (from 20 million RUR to zero) in January-March 2008.

‘The repair jobs at Novokoltsovskaya highway will resume on April 15, 2008 and will probably last till July 15, 2008 as far as the left-hand part of the road in concerned, and till September 15, 2008 for the right-hand part of the road. This means the driving regulations will have to change for this period until the highway is re-launched in October 2008,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Highway Administration Sergey Ibragimov says. ‘Heavy-duty trucks will have to detour through Starokoltsovskiy and Tyumenskiy highways; in fact, these bulky vehicles might be banned from

Three Portuguese cities and a town located in Israel joined Contact in March 2008; in addition, the system users can now handle money orders to Vietnam and the Czech Republic. ‘SKB-Bank has been supporting this money order system for over two years now; our customers say this is the best value for the money. Contact’s recent expansion proves that this system is one of this country’s most mobile and dynamic ones at the moment. Moreover, Contact offers its customers a wide range of services in addition to the money orders proper, like mobile payments to banks, businesses, and organizations,’

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of April 4, 2008, the share price of BCS Prospective Shares Fund has gone down by 12.72% since the beginning of the year.

Olips, one of Yekaterinburg’s developers, won the gold medal at a real estate fair held on April 4-6, 2008. The fair’s coordinators thought very highly of the developers’ original stand and the interesting housing projects presented. In fact, the company’s stand was a total look-alike of a trendy living room. The idea behind this was offering customers not a mere place to live but a real cozy home. The visitors were duly impressed and took great interest in the developer’s projects, particularly in Parkoviy and Sozvesdiye apartment blocks. People commented on these blocks’ convenient location

Elected President Dmitriy Medvedev met some representatives of Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs on April 8, 2008. Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) and President of the Union’s Chelyabinsk Region division Viktor Rashnikov was one of the group’s representatives. This was one of several meetings Dmitriy Medvedev has held with the business executives recently. The meeting was aimed at consulting them on what their vision of Russia’s further development is, looking into the country’s socioeconomic development in 2008-2020, and discussing the issues related to