The construction of 3D Club (the apartment block) in Yekaterinburg will have to be slowed down in comparison with last summer’s rate because of the current economic crisis. Meteorite (Meteorit & Co Ltd), the general contractor, says the main reason for this is the lack of investment from the investor, that is, 3D Club construction cooperative. The cooperative Board suggested that the future apartment owners might do without the complete remodeling of their rooms so that the money saved could be used to cover the underground parking lot. The Board explained that the complete remodeling was

Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko held a meeting on the efficiency of crisis-defying measures in the economy’s real sector in Chelyabinsk. The meeting was attended by Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin and heads and representatives of Ural Federal District’s largest enterprises. ‘The problem of most industrial branches is their poor technical capacity. 49.8% of Ural Federal District’s basic machinery is worn out, while the Russian average figures come to 45.3%. The available analytical data make it obvious that

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (ChTPZ Group’s largest tube and pipe manufacturers) supplied their consumers with 1.509 million tons of tubular goods in the twelve months of 2008, which falls short of the figures for a year earlier (that is, 1.892 million tons) by 20%. The decrease in the output volume mainly has to do with smaller demand for large-diameter pipes in the industrial, machine-building, construction, and energy sectors in the last quarter of 2008. The decrease in demand was, in its turn, brought about by the rapidly unfolding financial and economic

URSA Bank paid its investors 209.4 million RUR worth of coupon yield on the bank’s seventh bond issue. The bank went through with this five-billion-ruble bond issue (serial number 40700323 В) on July 26, 2007; the bonds are to be in circulation for five years. The issue was coordinated by Renaissance Capital and Deutsche Bank. The coupon yield was determined by the 8.4% annual interest rate (41.88 RUR per each bond).

The Central Bank of Russia reports 1,246 counterfeit banknotes were confiscated within the country in the last quarter of 2008, of which 1,163 bills were U.S. dollars, 72 banknotes were euros, seven bills were Chinese Renminbi yuans, and four bills were UK pounds sterling.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was able to raise its assets by 31.4%, so these now amount to 50.33 billion RUR. The bank’s balance sheet total reached 71.42 billion RUR on January 1, 2009 (which was 79% better than a year earlier). The customers’ account balance exceeded 29.44 billion RUR last year, while the private individuals’ deposit volume increased up to 20.48 billion RUR. ‘Our end-of-year performance results make it obvious that, despite the microeconomic difficulties, the bank keeps on successfully implementing its chosen strategy and expands the business through

‘Under the circumstances (that is, under the current liquidity crisis) most builders are in and because of the plummeting prices, all the plans related to putting up suburban cottages have been postponed by about a year. This includes, for instance, Snegiri cottage district; then, the construction of River Park Club in the countryside has been put off indefinitely, whereas the whole concept of the building had to be reconsidered because of the current economic problems. The same is true of many other projects. The construction of a cottage district in Priozerniy hasn’t even been started yet,

‘Our financial recovery plan targeted at helping Bank Severnaya Kazna included a detailed analysis which resulted in the decision to close down seven of the bank’s offices because they showed complete lack of profits over this and last periods,’ Alfa-Bank’s representative said to an UrBC reporter. Six of Bank Severnaya Kazna’s (now the asset of Alfa-Bank) offices located in Sverdlovsk Region are to stop operating in the nearest future. Four of these are based in Yekaterinburg; one office is located in Kamensk-Uralskiy, and one more in Pervouralsk. In addition, one more office stopped

Ural Airlines is introducing a new Yekaterinburg-Krasnoyarsk-Yekaterinburg flight. The carrier’s CEO Sergey Skuratov mentioned the airline’s plans to expand into Siberia and the Far East as early as the fall of 2008; in fact, creating a wider destination network is an important component of the airline’s development strategy for the next five years. Having built up on the number of aircraft, Ural Airlines is expected to win its market niche on Western Siberia and Amur Region’s civil aviation markets as well as to move on to China and launch new flights to South-East Asia (after a long haul

SKB-Bank’s private individuals’ deposits amounted to over 13 billion RUR in January 2009. The figure came to 11.97 billion RUR on December 31, 2008. ‘Our customers have deposited more than 1 billion RUR with the bank since New Year,’ the bank’s press officer reports. The bank’s Patriot deposit type is definitely the most popular one with customers, as the interest rate on this deposit comes to 16% a year during the first 100 days of the deposit period. What is more, UAZ Patriot, and off-road vehicle, will be awarded to one of the depositors in the course of a lottery drawing.

Bank Severnaya Kazna’s (now the asset of Alfa-Bank) six outlets are closing down in Sverdlovsk Region. These are the offices located at 84 Metallurgov St., 4 Scherbakov St., 149 Vosmoye Marta St., and 31 Lunacharskiy St. in Yekaterinburg and offices situated at 83a Kamenskaya St. in Kamensk-Uralskiy and 52g Trubnikov St. in Pervouralsk. All of these will stop operating between January 23, 2009 and February 6, 2009. The announcement to this extent was placed on the bank’s official website.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) drew up a plan for scientific and technical information promotion in 2008. The enterprise’s PR Department reports this is expected to help the company seek, investigate, and launch the newest technologies and devices more effectively. A new STI board was also elected, chaired by MMK’s chief engineer Sergey Ushakov. Then, executives responsible for information research and special reviewers were appointed in every production department. In addition, the board thought through their basic agenda, covering top-priority issues and this year’s business

Bank Vyatich’s net profit went down by 4.023 million RUR, or 80% in the last quarter of 2008. The bank’s net profit only reached 1.029 million RUR in October-December 2008 compared with 5.052 million RUR in July-September 2008. The bank reports the drop in their net profits was brought about by the increased expenses related to purchase and sale of foreign currency as well as greater investment in possible loss reserves. These reserves, in their turn, had to be built up upon because of the bank’s growing lending portfolio and advance payments on profits tax.

Fitch Ratings has recently demoted the Russian LSR Group’s Issuer Default Rating in foreign currency as well as its priority rating from B+ to B. Then, both of these ratings are now on the Rating Watch and marked as Negative. The Group’s rating indicating the possible asset recovery on the company’s priority debt was affirmed at RR4. LSR Ural Management Company comprises SMU Nova-Stroy, Betfor (the concrete goods manufacturer), Nova-Stroy, PKU Nova-StroyProekt, and Uralscheben. ‘The rating decrease shows that we expect LSR Group’s financial development indicators to be badly affected by the

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service keeps looking into the case involving Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg, TNK BP Holding, and UNK. The claim against the companies was laid in October 2008 and involved alleged jet fuel price collusion. The last court hearing resulted in the decision to postpone the processing of the case because of the need to get some data from Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog). What the court needed to know was whether it was possible to mix up several kinds of

Bank Severnaya Kazna’s net loss (now the asset of Alfa-Bank) was officially reported to have exceeded 1.52 billion RUR in the fourth quarter of 2008. A quarter earlier, the loss figure came to 60.507 million RUR. This means the net loss increase amounted to 1,464,444,000 RUR, or 2,240.29%. The bank claims the reason for net loss growth is their selling their securities portfolio and creating debt reserves.

According to RBC.Rating, Bank Monetniy Dom (formerly known as Mechel-Bank) was one of Russia’s Top 500 largest banks on October 1, 2008. The bank scored the 199th position in the rating, the agency reports. RBC.Rating says Bank Monetniy Dom’s net asset volume came to 7.839 billion RUR in January-September 2008, which was 53.07% better than a year earlier and therefore secured the bank an impressive promotion in the rating by as many as thirty-two positions up.

Gubernskiy Bank has recently updated the terms of its Gubernskiy Express deposit. ‘The bank’s most popular deposit type is now even more profitable for customers. The interest rate for U.S. dollar and euro deposits is now determined at 12% a year,’ Gubernskiy’s press officer reports. Gubernskiy Bank raised the interest rate on the ruble deposits as well: the rate offered on Gubernskiy Express deposit type and on Retirement Savings one now comes to up to 16.1% a year. ‘A lot of people prefer to keep their savings in foreign currency at the moment, and we respect their choice. To make sure

SKB-Bank’s customers had over 600,000 money orders handled for them by the bank in 2008. ‘This is a record-setting figure, with more than 1,500 money order transactions performed in the bank’s offices daily,’ the spokesperson for SKB-Bank reports. These data cover all the transactions performed through both money order systems and the standard banking money order procedures. As a matter of fact, the number of money orders processed in 2007 only reached about 200,000. Experts believe the increase in the number of such transactions last year had to do with the population’s enhanced economic

12 companies have been excluded from Sverdlovsk Region Builders’ Union recently. The decision was taken by the union’s board after the companies had failed to pay their membership fees in 2007 and 2008. Among the excluded companies are: Domostroy, UKS Holding, Engineer, STKU, Uralmetallurgmontazh, UMPTK Uralmetallurgmontazh, Spasskiye Vorota Insurance Company, Sverdlovskgrazhdanstroy Trust, Insight Corporation, Engineer-Project, Polur, and a state-run company dealing in construction and maintenance of traffic engineering in Sverdlovsk Region’s cities and villages, Sverdlovsk Region Builders’