The network provider’s management looked into the results of MRSK Urala’s performance in the first half of 2009 during an ad hoc conference coordinated by FINAM Investment Company. According to MRSK Urala’s Deputy GD for Capital Construction Sergey Semerikov, their investment program for 2009 had to be halved against the figures they had initially set out for. ‘At the end of 2008, we expected to have invested about 7.7 billion RUR in various projects, but now we find we are forced to stick with the modest 2.9 billion RUR. The spending cuts mostly affected the buildings whose commercial

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is going to look into the claim laid by Global Gaming Expo (GGE) against Bank24.ru. The plaintiff insists on the defendant paying them 186,649,428.64 RUR. The court hearing was scheduled for September 9, 2009. Now GGE was actually founded by Bank24.ru’s former BOD member Alexei Kalinichenko. During the preliminary hearing on August 12, 2009, the bank’s representative declared the company did not accept GGE’s claims. The executive explained the bank had never written off any sums mentioned in the plaintiff’s application. All the transactions were carried out

‘The company’s profits were actually lower in the first half of 2009 than had been expected. This largely has to do with the customers’ decreased purchasing power. Besides, there are plenty of legal entities trying to reduce their outgoings, including telecommunications spending. At the same time, our revenues have been on the increase lately,’ Uralsvyazinform’s Deputy GD and Commercial Director Pavel Zaitsev announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. In fact, the average number of workers employed by the telecommunications provider came to 22,050 people in June 2009, which was 8.4%

The number of people Utair Airlines flew in January-July 2009 declined by 3.6% in comparison with January-July 2008. The amount of mail transferred by the carrier decreased by 38.9%. ‘Over the seven months of 2009, the airline managed to nearly restore its ante-recession passenger turnover figures: so far, 1,817,640 passengers have flown with us since the beginning of the year, compared with 1,884,765 people a year earlier,’ the carrier reports.

On August 11, 2009, it was reported at the Governor of Sverdlovsk Region crisis-defying committee’s meeting in Yekaterinburg that 12,000 people employed at Uralvagonzavod Scientific and Production Enterprise were laid off temporarily. The committee feels the situation at the plant is rather difficult, with things recovering slowly. In May, for instance, as many as 17,000 people were put on leaves.

The workers of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) sheet-rolling shop No. 7 have recently mastered the technology related to cold-formed section production. These sections are meant to be used for building bridges. The order for the sections was placed by KurganStalMost which needed A-line formed sections for fortifying the bridge structures. The manufactured section is 8mm thick and 12 meters long; it was made of S420MС steel in accordance with the DINEN 10149-2:1995 standards. ‘We chose this highly durable steel type which is relatively new to MMK because today’s building know-hows

The net profit of Ural Plant RTI plunged by 2.759 million RUR, or 45.57% (from 6.055 million RUR in the first quarter of 2009 to 3.296 million RUR in the second quarter). The enterprise explains their profits dropped due to their customers’ increasing debts for the goods they bought from the plant and for the energy resources consumed. This meant the company had to set up additional bad debt reserves of 19.723 million RUR.

Rusfinans Bank came up with its performance report for the second quarter of 2009. The company’s net losses amounted to 119.752 million RUR, compared with 265.854 million RUR worth of profits obtained in the first quarter of the year. The bank explains the losses were brought about by greater commission expenses and smaller interest yields.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is going to look into the claim laid by Global Gaming Expo (GGE) against Bank24.ru. The plaintiff insists on the defendant paying them 186,649,428.64 RUR. The preliminary court hearing was scheduled for August 12, 2009. Now GGE was actually founded by Bank24.ru’s former BOD member Alexei Kalinichenko. In addition, the case features Alfa-Bank as a third party with no claims of its own. Alexei Kalinichenko’s business activity involved handling transactions on Forex foreign exchange market, with the ROI declared at 30% to 200% a year. The money needed for the

PSM-Gidravlika placed its petition with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court, requesting to cancel the earlier decision to claim their property mortgaged with Bank VTB. The bank’s Yekaterinburg subsidiary laid its claim against PSM-Gidravlika on June 23, 2009. Bank VTB insisted on getting 51.83 million RUR worth of debts and on claiming the company’s mortgaged property. A day later, the court ruled in the bank’s favor.

Probusinessbank’s two Yekaterinburg-based assets (both of which are Life Group members) were rated among Russia’s Top 200 banks by Interfax agency, getting adjoining positions in the second hundred. According to this ranking, VUZ-Bank’s assets went down by 1.7% in the first half of 2009, whereas the assets of Bank24.ru rose by 1.9% over the same period of time. So the banks were rated Russia’s 176th and 177th largest banks, respectively.

Despite the current economic difficulties, the state must make sure the Russian retirees get their pensions on time and in full, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin said at a meeting with the Russian Pension Fund’s regional division CEO Viktor Chernobrovin. The latter, in his turn, assured the Governor that all of the region’s pensioners were getting their payments without delays. Chernobrovin said the special federal bill provided for a pension rise on January 1, 2010. The insured pension part of all those who retired after 2002 is to be raised by 10%, with an extra 1% increase per

Ural Pipe Plant produced 73,248 tons of tubular goods in January-July 2009, which was 43.7% less than a year earlier, the enterprise’s Marketing Department reports. The plant also cut its oil pipeline output by 8.1%, so only 43,032 tons of those were made in seven months of 2009. The shaped tubes output plunged by 2.76 times and came to 30,216 tons. The company shipped 73,279 tons of tubes to consumers in January-July 2009, including 41,676 tons of oil country tubular goods and 31,603 tons of shaped tubes. The overall decrease in shipments came to 42.8%, with OCTG and shaped tubes shipments

‘It happens quite often these days that just two or three people who own the business actually decide the company’s future. This is unacceptable, especially in the Urals, where many enterprises date back to the eighteenth century and gather entire cities around them. Such decisions must be taken collectively, with the workers having their say, too. Otherwise we might end up with a case like that of Egorshinskiy radio plant where the proprietors simply pilfered the business down to pieces. As soon as the economic recession kicked in, they increased their own salaries so that they became 400

MRSK Urala came up with a financial and economic performance report for the first half of 2009. The report was drawn up in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards. According to the official data provided by the company, their pre-tax profit nosedived by 85.6% compared with the first half of 2008, whereas their net profit declined by 67.2%. At the same time, the company’s sales revenues rose by 15.7% and their avails soared by 208.2%, even though the product’s prime cost went up by 8.3%.

Accord-Invest Investment Company’s Ural branch and the branch’s Yekaterinburg HQ are to close down soon. The decision was taken by URALSIB Financial Corporation, the proprietor, the branch’s Director Konstantin Selyanin informed UrBC. ‘The investment company’s sole owner decided a little while ago to do away with some of the regional subsidiaries and their offices, including the Ural branch. URALSIB was legally qualified to make such a decision regardless of the subsidiaries’ actual performance, so the company’s Ural branch has been gradually diminishing since July 1, 2009,’ Selyanin

The regional communal housing services sector’s debts to Sverdlovenergosbyt had exceeded 970 million RUR by August 1, 2009. Nizhniy Tagil, with its 67 million RUR worth of debts, Pervouralsk, with its 50 million RUR worth of debts, Artemovskiy (owing the energy supplier over 49 million RUR), Tavda (whose debt comes to nearly 47 million RUR), and Kamensk-Uralskiy, with its 37 million RUR worth of debts, are the supplier’s most worrying debtors. The company explains most communal housing services organizations fail to pay due to badly balanced housing fees: over the last few years, the fees

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) launched its Sosnovskiy mine in the course of a solemn opening ceremony last Friday. The enterprise received the license allowing the company to develop this Chelyabinsk Region-based black iron ore deposit in October 2003. In February 2007, MMK bought a 51% shareholding in Bakalskoye Mine Group, the Urals’ oldest iron ore mining enterprise. MMK BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov says this transaction was part of the company’s raw-material base building strategy, since MMK intended to build one through developing the local iron ore deposits. In September

Koltsovo Airport’s extraordinary general meeting resulted in the stockholders re-electing their Board of Directors. The BOD now comprises the Russian Federation Ministry for Economic Development’s Department Director Pavel Kalmayev, Property Department Counselor of Rosimuschestvo’s Private Energy Sector Administration Dmitriy Logunov, Koltsovo-Invest’s General Director Ekaterina Lyakhova, Renova State Corporation Deputy Chairman of the Board Evgeniy Olkhovik, Rosaviation Head of Airport Administration Anatoly Pchelin, General Director of Civil Airports Administration Federal State Unitary

VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation’s sales revenues went down by 14.2% in the first half of 2009 compared with the first half of 2008, reaching 12.8 billion RUR. The company’s press service reports this mainly has to do with the fact that they have been selling less in physical terms due to the global recession. The corporation’s working assets have also gone down: the raw stuff reserves with in-stock materials and accounts receivable have plunged by 12% and 11%, respectively, since January 2009.