Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service is going to ask the stock exchanges about data on the transactions involving Concern Kalina’s ordinary shares. The transactions the agency is interested in are those conducted just before the concern’s deal with Unilever was announced, a representative told Interfax. Now the news of Unilever buying the Yekaterinburg-based company was made public on October 14, 2011. The decision to investigate the possible use of some insider data regarding this Unilever/Concern Kalina deal will have to be made after a thorough examination of the data provided by the

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service declared the actions of Uniastrum Bank related to the administration of bank-managed mutual funds to be an act of unfair competition, the FAS’s press service reports. The agency detected that the bank delivered inaccurate information as to investment strategies and the ways of using them via its website and advertising materials; its investment policy statement regarding Premier bank-managed mutual funds was also misleading for both potential investors and the bank-managed mutual funds’ founders. These actions actually violate Article 14 (part 1,

Chelyabinsk Region-based enterprise Karabashmed had its shaft furnace dismantled recently. The furnaces that were in operation at one of Russia’s oldest metallurgical enterprises for over a hundred years were shut down as early as 2007, after Russian Copper Company took over the business. The large-scale renovation involved eliminating the most environmentally obsolete machinery out of the production process, which reduced the amount of harmful emissions by six times. The dismantling of the furnaces that were shut down earlier is quite symbolic, for these are the furnaces that caused the

Ural Airlines stopped using TU-154M airplanes. The last flight was operated by a plane of this type from Yamburg to Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg on Sunday, October 16, 2011, the airline’s press service reports. The company’s Director-General Sergey Skuratov said in the course of a briefing that the company stopped using TU-154M planes for economic reasons. These are the safest Russian planes, but, unfortunately, they are uneconomic. Thanks to TU-154M. we managed well during perestroika, since we could afford to operate flights abroad. These planes served as an intermediate stage of sorts

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service is going to conduct a scheduled on-site inspection of the German industrial concern Siemens’s Russian division through November 3, 2011, the FAS’s press service reports. The inspection is aimed at an all-round analysis of the company’s activity. The FAS has asked consumers to provide information on Siemens’s Russian branch violating the antimonopoly agreement by refusing to sign agreements, coordinating its distributors’ actions involving the resale of their produce, colluding with other organizations or authorities, which limits competition, setting the

A number of international experts are planning to discuss the Russian cities’ preparations for the World Cup 2018 in Yekaterinburg. The capital of the Urals will be the first city to host some Russian and foreign experts in the field of infrastructure development and sports facilities logistics on October 27-28, 2011. The experts were invited by Russia’s Transport Ministry and the Olympic Games Transportation Committee. Among the experts expected to arrive in Yekaterinburg are a professor from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, who will give a speech on the way

Sverdlovsk Region Government keeps coordinating a series of meetings with the heads of the region’s largest enterprises expected to pay some income tax to the region’s budget in 2011, the Governor’s press officer reports. Acting head of the inter-district tax inspectorate dealing with the region’s largest taxpayers Olga Shabalina says some local enterprises are now making more tax payments in general. According to Ms Shabalina, Uralmashzavod paid 10.5% more taxes in 2011 than last year, but this was due to personal income tax, as the company keeps employing more people and paying them higher

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court rejected the claim laid by Sverdlovsk Region prosecution authorities regarding declaring invalid a certain normative act, namely, the region’s law on imposing corporate property tax (subparagraphs 12 and 13), Kommersant reports. The prosecution authorities claimed that the subparagraphs in question did not comport with the certain points of Russia’s Tax Code and that they violate the existing Competition Protection Act. Now the amendments to the law were made in October 2010 and came into effect at the start of 2011. According to one of these amendments,

Russian Railwasy and STM-Service (Sinara-Transport Machines) signed a maintenance agreement involving Sinara electric locomotives produced by Sinara Group and Siemens AG joint venture called Ural Locomotives, Sinara Group’s PR Department reports. Under the terms of the agreement, STM-Service will have to provide good quality maintenance needed to keep 2ES6 locos 001-137 in good condition.

Fitch Ratings carried out a number of rating researches involving the daughter companies of the Italian bank UniCredit S.p.A. (A/Rating Watch Negative/F2) based in Central and Eastern Europe. The research was done after the bank’s long-term Issuer Default Rating (A) was placed on the Rating Watch, with Negative rating outlook. The rating agency reconsidered the rating outlook for the long-term Issuer Default Rating of UniCreditBank Russia (BBB+) from Positive to Stable. This change reflects the growing uncertainty as to the parent enterprise’s capacity to support its daughter banks in the

Koltsovo Airport filling station is going to launch a 2.6% jet fuel price increase, so the fuel will come to cost 29,150 RUR per ton, the station reports. The Yekaterinburg-based airport’s press service informed Interfax-Ural that the increase in the price of fuel has to do with the suppliers’ growing prices. Meanwhile, the price of jet fuel already went up by 4.4% on September 11, 2011.

Unilever and Concern Kalina announced that the former signed an agreement on purchasing 82% of Yekaterinburg-based concern’s shares. The price of the 82% shareholding comes to approximately 16.7 RUR (?390m). Upon the completion of the transaction, Unilever intends to make an obligatory buy-out offer to the rest of Kalina’s stockholders involving the rest of the shares not covered by the initial agreement. This will be done in accordance with the procedure and the terms set out in the current Russian legislation.

Yekaterinburg Zhelesnodorozhny District Court pronounced a verdict of guilty upon a Yekaterinburg dweller named U. who had been charged with copyright violation and five instances of illegal access to computer data. The court’s verdict was based on the evidence provided by the state prosecutor. It was determined by the court that U. used his Internet connection to copy a number of computer programs onto CDs between March 12, 2011 and March 14, 2011. The computer software in question is copyrighted by Microsoft Corporation, Corel Corporation, 1C, and Adobe Systems Incorporated. What is more,

Russia’s leading pipe manufacturer and OCTG supplier Chelyabinsk Tube-Rolling Plant came up with a performance and consolidated financial report (drawn up in accordance with the International Accounting Standards) for the six months of 2011. In the first half of the year, the plant’s steel pipes sales reached 1,012,000 tons, which exceeded the figures for the first half of 2010 (771,000 tons) by 41%. The large-diameter pipes sales rose by 91%, those of oil country tubular goods – by 16%, those of industrial weldless pipes – by 20% (against 521,000 tons, 117,000 tons, and 280,000 tons last

The net profit of NOMOS-Bank plunged by 94.3% in the third quarter of 2011 and came to 151.6m RUR. The bank reports that the company’s net interest rate profit resulting from its main business activity and constituting the primary part of their profit kept growing, yet the negative re-evaluation of the stock led to a decrease in the net profit.

The net profit of Rostelecom United Company (calculated in accordance with the International Accounting Standards) decreased by 5.7%, that is, down to 10bn RUR, in comparison with the first quarter of the year, states the consensus forecast prepared by Prime on the basis of data provided by analysts.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s leading mobile technologies company, and the telecommunications provider MegaFon announced the price and the selling details of their Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 sold exclusively at the mobile operator’s Russia-based outlets. The innovational pad with an installed 3G cell communication unit hit the shelves of MegaFon’s stores on October 15, 2011. The device will be sold for 22,900 RUR – this is the price of the 16Gb-memory make. An ‘older’ 32-Gb make will be available for 26,990 RUR starting late October. The device comes in two colors, black and white.

Rosaviation halted Avianova’s aircraft operator license, the agency’s head Alexander Neradko told RIA Novosti. The low-cost airline stopped selling any tickets on October 2, 2011, and stopped operating altogether on October 10. Avianova’s acting Director-General Konstantin Teterin said earlier that the airline would apply to Rosaviation for having its aircraft operator license halted, but not annulled.

The Japanese Corporation announced it was going to call off 1.6m LCD Bravia TV sets after customers started taking them back to the store for repairs; the general complaint was that ‘the TV sets are smoldering’. According to Reuters, this ‘special effect’ has to do with the fact that some parts of the TV sets happen to melt, producing smoke and an unpleasant smell. The TV sets will be called off all over the world, the agency says.

Ural Airlines gave up on the idea of purchasing medium-distance planes and is only going to buy long-haul aircraft in the future, the company’s Director-General Sergey Skuratov told reporters in the course of the recent Russia-EU summit. We gave up on buying those [medium-distance planes. – Editors’ note.],’ he said, explaining that the airline was initially planning on buying medium-distance ATR 42 planes. Starting 2013, we intend to buy long-haul aircraft,’ RIA Novosti quotes Skuratov as saying. The executive said that the company was to increase its A320 fleet of vehicles up to