The net profit of Binbank (calculated in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards) dropped by three times in the first half of 2012 and came to 223m RUR against 688m RUR a year earlier. This was mainly due to the need to create non-core asset reserves, a less impressive stock market dynamics, and an increase in the salary fund insurance payments, Prime refers to the bank’s press office as saying. The bank’s business customers lending portfolio rose by 16% in six months of the year and reached 70.4bn RUR due to attracting about 5,100 new customers. Binbank’s retail portfolio rose by 7%

Sinara Pipe Plant (SinTZ), a part of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK), summed up the results of its annual improvements contest for 2011 on the eve of Inventor & Innovator’s Day. Last year, 311 people contributed to the plant’s innovative activity, including 159 young workers and experts. Throughout the year, 1,080 improvement proposals were considered: 306 of them were accepted and 156 actually launched. This saved the company over 8.5m RUR altogether. Also, 1,372,700 kilowatt-hours worth of electric power, 1,101.4 gigacalories worth of heating energy, and 574,100 cubic meters of

The Mid-Urals Development Corporation explains the delay in the construction of a low-rise residential block Istoksky by the new regional Cabinet formation. ‘Changes in the composition of the Cabinet were the reason why a crucial agreement between the corporation and Sverdlovsk Region Government could not be signed,’ says the company’s Director-General Sergey Filippov. The corporation also explained the project of was supported by the Construction Ministry. ‘We gave this project our general support, and we intend to develop it. Under the existing agreement, the dwellings will primarily be

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service made Ingosstrakh reduce the total share of Ingosstrakh-Yugoria Group on the Russian regional insurance markets in case Ingosstrakh buys a 100% stake in Yugoria Insurance Company. Now the FAS has already approved Ingosstrakh’s petition for the acquisition of a 100% shareholding in Yugoria: the latter is to be privatized in August. For three years, Ingosstrakh will have to submit quarterly reports on how the reduction process is going to the FAS.

The Consulate-General of the Republic of France in Yekaterinburg will soon stop accepting visa applications. Starting August 1, 2012, this authority will be handed over to Moscow, the spokesperson for Yekaterinburg Council reports. The Consulate explains this ‘visa reform’ has to do with the internal reorganization of the French consulate network in Russia and the budget savings program. However, the visa-issuing procedure will remain the same for Yekaterinburg residents. One can still submit all the papers and get the permission to enter France at the united visa center at 13 Karl Liebknecht

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court sustained the application placed by Federal Tax Service 31 on behalf of Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Tax Service on including the service in the list of Russkiye Samotsvety Plant’s creditors. The company is now involved in a bankruptcy case, and the service’s claim comes to 1.8m RUR, the court reports. Now the court ruled on March 6, 2012 that Russkiye Samotsvety Plant should undergo bankruptcy proceedings. Ulyana Nikulina was appointed the company’s trustee in bankruptcy. The tax service will be among the third-priority creditors.

Upon Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev and Head of Government Denis Pasler’s request, the region’s Ministry for Public Property Management drew up a letter to the Russian TV & Radio Broadcasting Network (RTRS), asking for the unfinished TV tower in Yekaterinburg to be handed over from the federal authorities to the regional ones. Last week, Minister for Public Property Management Alexei Pyankov met head of RTRS Petr Podoinikov. ‘We came to a general agreement on handing the tower over to the regional authorities at no charge, in case the latter provide us with an equivalent

Last week, MasterCroft Ltd sold a 5.1548% stake in Vysokogorsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise (VGOK, a member of Evraz plc), Interfax-Ural refers to the plant’s official reports as stating. MasterCroft has kept one vote, or 0.00000012818% of shares. At the same time, Sibmetinvest (a member of Evraz plc), now owns a 99.9999% stake in the business. It used to own 94.8451% of shares before.

Yekaterinburg’s medical market turnover grew by 18.4% and came to 14.38bn RUR, RBC Market Research refers to BusinessStat as saying. The market mainly grew due to the growing obligatory medical insurance funds budget revenues, as this is the main sector of the medical market: in 2011, 47% of the local medical service spending fell into the obligatory medical insurance sector. In terms of physical volume, this sector’s services came to 82% of the market due to lower prices against private medical services: last year, an appointment through the obligatory medical insurance system cost 362.6

On Friday, July 6, Sberbank cards could not be used either in Russia or abroad due to a technical glitch, the bank reports. The bank’s IT experts managed to solve all the problems within a few hours’ time. ‘The card services were unavailable starting from 5:00 PM Moscow time because of a failure in the ORACLE-based processing database. Switching the system to a reserve set turned out to be useless, which was why it was decided to start the recovery procedure. Due to a lot of data stored in the database, this takes a lot of time, but it also guarantees the total recovery of all the customer

Renova Group of Companies’ new holding Regional Airports is planning to present projects on the development of three airports (in Yekaterinburg, Samara, and Nizhniy Novgorod) at the Ural International Exhibition/Forum Innoprom. The exhibition starts on July 12, 2012. The key features of the presentation on Koltsovo Airport are the projects on the development of short-haul flights and the construction of a freight facility (this started a year ago and was pilot-launched in June 2012). The new freight terminal’s area comes to 19,000 sq m; it requires about 1.4bn RUR worth of investments. The

ChTPZ Group and Gazprom signed a bilateral agreement on scientific and technological cooperation for the years 2012-2015. The agreement is aimed at mastering the new kinds of produce with enhanced technical and efficiency characteristics that will meet Gazprom’s needs, ChTPZ reports. The agreement provides for cooperation along three main routes: electrically welded large-diameter pipes, well casing, and oil well tubing. Experts from the two companies’ scientific and technological divisions intend to work on improving the quality of tubes, increasing their lifespan, and devising the normative

Sverdlovsk Region authorities are planning to sign at least as much worth of contracts as last year in the course of Innoprom 2012, Governor Evgeny Kuivashev announced in the course of a briefing. ‘For now, our goal is to sign at least as many contracts as last year. The main thing is to ensure the great quality of the exhibition,’ the Governor said. Last year, 180bn RUR worth of contracts was signed. The international industry and innovations exhibition Innoprom 2012 will be held in Yekaterinburg for the third time on July 12-15.

Sverdlovsk Region division of State Labor Inspectorate inspected Ural Aeronavigation, the subsidiary of Federal State Unitary Enterprise State ATM Corporation, for compliance with the labor protection requirements on June 4-29. As a result, twelve violations were revealed, the inspectorate reports. For one, the company has no personal new format files to account for the means of individual protection for every employee, and no certificates of compliance are listed there. This contradicts paragraph 3 of the Inter-Branch Rules for Providing Workers with Special Clothing, Special Footwear, and

Sberbank’s net profit (calculated in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards) rose by 7% in January-June 2012 and came to 183bn RUR; this growth slowed down by a half compared with the earlier months and thus increased the company’s spending on the creation of reserves, Prime reports. In the first half of the year, profits resulting from the interest rate went up by 30% thanks to more loans being offered. However, the interest rate expenses keep growing faster (the increase came to 37.6% in January-June) as the rates are higher on the funds borrowing market. As a result, the bank’s

Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (a part of ChTPZ Group) now makes spacing wire with enhanced characteristics from chromium/nickel EK 164 steel for the nuclear industry, ChTPZ press service reports. The technology for the production of spacing wire that ChTPZ devised is unique, has no counterparts in Russia, and has eight Russian Federation patents. Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant is the exclusive supplier of round and oval-shaped wire; this used to be made from ChS 68 steel before, but, given the nuclear industry’s needs, ChTPZ Group has mastered the production of such wire from EK 164 steel. Both

The amount of shipments handled via Second Freight Company-managed open top wagons decreased by 5.9% in May 2012 compared with April 2012 and came to 3.2m tons against 3.4m tons, RZhD Partner portal refers to the company’s press service as saying. The greatest volume of shipments handled via Second Freight Company-managed open top wagons was registered at West-Siberian Railways (1.3m tons of goods, or 40% of all the open top wagon shipments), Sverdlovsk Railways (0.4m tons of goods, or 11%), Oktyabrskaya Railways (0.25m tons of goods, or 8%), and South-Ural Railways (0.13m tons of goods, or

Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) came up with a performance report for the six months of 2012. June proved the most productive month, and a new record of 2,500 railway vehicles made within a month was set, the plant’s press service reports. All in all, 13,918 wagons and carriages have been produced at this Nizhniy Tagil-based plant sicne the beginning of the year. This was 8.5% more than a year earlier, even though January-June 2011 were the most productive months in the plant’s history. This figure includes 11,010 open top carriages, 2, 820 tanks, and 88 lumber vessels. The plant’s sales revenues came

Head of Public Property Control Department at Rosimushchestvo’s Sverdlovsk Region division Ilya Trunilin was found guilty of bribe-taking (Article 290 (part 3) of the Russian Federation Criminal Code), the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Court reports. The Director of Alliance-Techno 2002 V. Ivanov appealed to Trunilin in March 2011, asking him to facilitate the signing of a warehouse rental contract. The hangar for automobile storage and repairs has the area of 1,500 sq m, is located in the village of Istok, is managed by the Russian Agricultural Academy’s Istok, and belongs to the state.

A program for the development of Yekaterinburg, dubbed The Capital, will be devised by the end of July, after which a public discussion will be held on its points, Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev told reporters on July 5. ‘My colleagues from the city council and I are now working on The Capital. The region’s government was requested to add a certain list of projects to the program. This includes road-building, urban development, and much else besides. I believe the program will be ready by the end of July, and everyone can voice their opinion then,’ Kuivashev said. The