RBC.Rating came up with its quarterly report on the Russian banks’ performance recently. Their latest research focused on the banking activity in the first quarter of 2010 and resulted in a rating of Russia’s one hundred most profitable and efficient banks with the widest range of services. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development made it to Russia’s Top100 Banks list in all the available categories. The company came 58th in the country-wide profit rating thanks to its 185.92 million RUR worth of profits (as of April 1, 2010) and became the Urals’ most profitable bank in the first

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) carried out a scheduled inspection of a wholesale warehouse for dietary supplements that belongs to Protek-14, the subsidiary of ZAO PROTEK Promotion Center, based in Berezovskiy, Sverdlovsk Region. Rospotrebnadzor’s regional division detected a number of storage regulations violations and exerted some administrative pressure on the company. For one, Protek-14 was ordered to remove all the instances of non-compliances with the existing rules and to stop selling produce that did not meet the legislative

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) is going to resume the investigation of the case involving the presumably illegitimate advertisements run by Limerence Shopping Center and Extreme Fitness Athletics gym chain. Case No. 39, filed against OOO Krona and Limerence Shopping Center’s management, contains charges based on Article 18 (part 1) of the Federal Advertising Act. The defendants are suspected of distributing their advertisements in text message format without the mobile phone and number owners’ written consent. The complaint was originally placed with

A number of Magnum strong drinks supermarket chain stores had to stop operating for the time being in Yekaterinburg. The chain store representatives do admit they have been suspended; they refuse to provide any comments on the causes of the halt, however. Magnum currently comprises nine stores, eight of which are located in Yekaterinburg, with the remaining one based in Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region. UralBusinessConsulting found out that at least two of the chain’s stores had been closed upon the order of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Service of Court Officers. The Service’s

UC RUSAL denies all the allegations made by OOO VICOM and ZAO Uralelectromash as to RUSAL’s inability to deliver the metal on time and the resulting production stoppage. Nor does the aluminum producer agree to be held liable for this stoppage. Besides, UC RUSAL actually accuses OOO VICOM and ZAO Uralelectromash of information raiding. The two companies have complained earlier that the aluminum prices set by UC RUSAL for the home market were actually unjustified. According to OOO VICOM and ZAO Uralelectromash, they started experiencing delivery problems where UC RUSAL’s Ural smelter was

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin coordinated a meeting dedicated to the state of affairs at Malyshevskiy emerald and beryllium deposit. The meeting was attended by members of Sverdlovsk Region Government, heads of the security forces, and representatives of Kaliningrad amber plant (the deposit’s current subsoil user). The amber plant is operating under a temporary license at the moment; however, the Governor asked the federal Finance Ministry and the Ministry for Natural Resources & Environment to speed up the decision-making process related to offering the plant a

The Russian Federation Federal Antimonopoly Service is currently investigating the actions of OAO RUSAL Krasnoyarsk, OAO RUSAL Sayanogorsk, OAO RUSAL Bratsk, OAO RUSAL Novokuznetsk, and OAO SUAL. The inquiry is being carried out within the framework of a recently filed lawsuit, the FAS’s press officer reports. ‘The companies are suspected of violating Article 10 (part 1) of the Competition Protection Act through manipulating prices on the wholesale electric power market,’ the press officer explains.

Ural Federal University’s Supervisory Board has been considering the idea of setting up the university’s campus in Shartash, along Vysotskiy St. in Yekaterinburg. According to the existing project, a ‘student forum’ is going to become the centerpiece of the place. It will be surrounded by eight buildings: a hotel, a library/information center, and a number of departments or research and education centers under the general names: Construction, New Materials & Materials Sciences, and Economics & Management. The central set will be continued in a line of five-storey student dormitories

OAO Ural Chemical Agents Plant’s Board of Directors terminated the authority of the plant’s General Director Vitaliy Sviridov before the official end of his term. Sviridov owns 0.04% of the enterprise’s shares and is to be succeeded by the newly appointed Oleg Afanasiev.

The first meeting of Ural Federal University’s Supervisory Board is currently taking place in Yekaterinburg. The proceedings have been approved of by Russia’s Education Minister Andrei Fursenko. The university’s Supervisory Board comprises eleven members: Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin, the Soviet of the Federation’s Member Eduard Rossel, CEO Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company Andrei Kozitsin, CEO Pipe Metallurgical Company Dmitriy Pumpyanskiy, First Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Alexander Beletskiy, Mayor

Nazim Efendiev was appointed Managing Director of Ural Steel (member of Metalloinvest Holding) recently. He has already assumed office, the spokesperson for the holding reports. ‘I am truly delighted to be managing Ural Steel once again. I worked here for five years earlier, so I know quite well that this team can cope with any challenge. This is a company of high-class professionals, and it is an honor to work with them,’ Nazim Efendiev says. In fact, Nazim Efendiev had been the General Director of Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation until July 2009; in addition, he still holds a Deputy’s

ОOO Mayak Corporation had 3.4 million RUR worth of overdue budget payments on June 1, 2010, Sverdlovsk Region tax inspectorate reports. The sum includes 2.3 million RUR the corporation owes Sverdlovsk Region’s consolidated budget. These figures were announced during the recent meeting of the regional business support committee chaired by Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin. Anatoly Gredin said that human factor was partially responsible for the decrease in many local developers’ tax payments. The thing is, the construction companies are organized so as to unite all the parties

‘We might have merged into Greater Yekaterinburg in just one year if all the elected officials in every municipality involved assumed and left offices at one and the same time. The main challenge that Sverdlovsk Region’s legislative authorities need to resolve is the transition period. They need to decide just how citizens and officials should live and work when one town council’s powers have already expired and the executives of another one can still remain in office. This is why the realistic deadline for the official merger of local satellites into Greater Yekaterinburg would be the year

Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Anatoly Gredin coordinated a meeting of the regional business support committee recently; the meeting was attended by the heads of Sverdlovsk Region’s leading construction companies. The agenda of the meeting covered issues related to the economic and financial state of the local building enterprises and to the measures taken by these enterprises to pay more taxes to the region’s consolidated budget. In addition, the attendees discussed the builders’ need to pay off their state-subsidized bank loans. ZAO Nova-Stroy’s top executive Sergey Malafeev reported

The non-ferrous metals processing plant based in Revda, Sverdlovsk Region, finished last year off with 89.66 million RUR worth of losses. The company’s stockholders decided to balance the losses off by reducing the amount of profits made in the previous years. They also thought it best not to pay any share dividend for the year 2009.

Sverdlovsk Region public prosecution authorities held a meeting dedicated to preventing a possible emergency in Malyshevskiy municipality. The meeting was attended by Deputy Mayor of Malyshevskiy municipality, officers from Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Security Service, and representatives of ZAO Zelen Kamen and Kaliningrad amber plant. It was determined that OOO Mariinskaya Holding Company, the former subsoil user of Malyshevskiy emerald and beryllium deposit, rented the deposit to ZAO Zelen Kamen. Now the latter is currently undergoing bankruptcy proceedings, while the

RID-Expert RA (a consortium uniting the Russian Institute of Directors and Expert RA Rating Agency) gave Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) 7+ for its advanced corporate governance practices. MMK’s corporate governance policies were monitored in May 2009-May 2010. According to the Consortium, the enterprise is unique in that the functions of the proprietor and those of a manager are embodied in the company’s majority shareholder that owns 85% of MMK’s common stock. In addition, the enterprise has plenty of minority stockholders, which was why the monitoring focused particularly closely

‘The recession has slowed the implementation of Yekaterinburg City project down a bit. At the moment, the construction site is fully prepared for work. A lot of serious operations related to engineering and transport infrastructure have already been carried out. I am positive that this year we’ll resume working on Yekaterinburg City project,’ Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy announced at the 13th National Real Estate Congress in Yekaterinburg. The project actually provides for the construction of twelve different buildings, including the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Iset Tower, Ural Tower,

The Ural division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog) set up an ad hoc committee that will investigate the causes and circumstances of a large-scale fatal accident at Evraz Group-run Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise/VGOK’s Magnetitovaya mine, the spokesperson for Rostechnadzor says. Under the existing legislation, the committee is to start the inquiry fifteen days after the accident has occurred. The tragedy broke out on June 1, 2010 when a big chunk of rock mass collapsed within the mine, leaving one drill operator

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) ruled that the advertisements distributed by L’Etoile cosmetics chain store via text messaging were undue and illegitimate. The ads in question were sent to N. Melekhova, a local citizen, the spokesperson for the Service reports. The authorities took action against OOO Alcor-C (L’Etoile chain store) upon receiving an official complaint from Ms Melekhova; the charges had to do with violating the advertising legislation. Ms Melekhova stated that she had received four text messages with advertisements by L’Etoile (OOO