The auction aimed at selling a 100% stake in the state-run insurance company Yugoria has been put off till October 1, 2012, Yugoria’s press service reports. The decision was made in the course of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region Yugra Government’s meeting dedicated to the privatization of the state-owned property in the region. For one, the attendees considered the way the Governor’s request for monitoring the course of privatization and the insurance market in the course of Yugoria’s privatization was complied with. In the end, it was decided to postpone the auction until October 1, 2012.

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChTPZ) and Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) held a coordination meeting dedicated to the two companies’ strategic cooperation. The meeting was attended by representatives of ChTPZ and MMK’s technical and R&D experts as well as the heads of ChTPZ daughter enterprise ChTPZ Engineering, ChTPZ’s press officer reports. The meeting participants looked into and discussed the ways of protecting their intellectual property that had been created in the course of the two enterprises’ cooperation, agreed on the members of the joint work team, and spoke about

Deputy Governor of Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region Yugra Vera Dyudina left her office as BOD Chair of Khanty-Mansiysky Bank. The Board of Directors is now chaired by Alexander Murychev, Executive Vice President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Employers and Chairman of the Association of Regional Russian Banks’ Board.

Seppala and Jack&Jones will no longer be operating in MEGA Shopping Center in Yekaterinburg. ‘All the basic agreements had been signed for a five-year term, so some of them, including the ones signed with Seppala and Jack&Jones, were not renewed, so the said stores will close down. River Island and Imaginarium will take their place before the end of the year (the exact date has not been set yet). Some of the stores in the shopping center are currently closed for reconstruction,’ the mall’s PR Department reports. At the same time, Adidas Originals, Windsor Knot, and MTS launched their

Starting June 1, 2012, In Malyshev St branch of Nomos Bank’s Yekaterinburg division will stop operating due to a newly adopted development strategy. The office is located at 85 Malyshev St in Yekaterinburg. An outlet of Nomos Bank’s daughter company Khanty-Mansiysky Bank will be opened there instead, Nomos-Bank’s press service reports.

Chairman of Uralvagonzavod Scientific & Production Corporation’s Board of Directors Evgeny Shkolov is leaving office six months after he was appointed. The Russian Federation President’s press service reports Shkolov was appointed the President’s Assistant. The 56-year-old Shkolov assumed office at Uralvagonzavod in November 2011.

Ural Airlines came up with a performance report for April 2012. The company flew 254,337 passengers last month, which was 61% more than in April 2011. All in all, 838,122 people have flown with the air carrier since the beginning of the year. In April 2012, Ural Airlines operated 2,044 flights, including 793 international flights, 782 domestic flights, and 469 flights to destinations in CIS member states. The actual passenger turnover came to 701,437 passenger-kilometers in April 2012, which was a 71% improvement on a year earlier. All in all, Ural Airlines have operated 7,189 flights since

Rosnedra declared UMMC’s Mednogorsky Copper & Sulphur Works the winner in the tender for the development of Yelanskoye copper- and nickel-containing ore deposit in Voronezh Region. Now Norilsk Nickel, which took part in the tender as well, decided the state agency’s decision had not been impartial. Norilsk Nickel also refused to join the project for the development of another deposit, Yelkinskoye. As a result, this deposit was handed over to UMMC, too. The nationally significant subsoil resources of Yelanskoye and Yelkinskoye deposits are located in Voronezh Region’s Novokhopersky

Seven Bank Koltso Urala’s cardholders won in Visa International’s special offer run between March 1 and April 30, 2012 and were offered a trip to the opening of the Olympics 2012 in London. The offer covered a number of other valuable prizes, as well as trips to the opening of the 30th Olympics, for Visa cardholders, the bank reports. The prize-drawing took place on May 16. The winners are seven of the bank’s customers living in Yekaterinburg, Verkhnyaya Pyshma, Kemerovo, and Mednogorsk. Two more customers won large 3D Panasonic TV sets. 50 such TV sets were given out as prizes altogether,

Visa and Metcombank’s cooperation resulted in a new offer for the bank’s customers: a mobile app called Visa Premium that was developed within Visa Privilege World program, the bank reports. The application is available for all the holders of Visa Gold, Platinum, and Infinite cards and allows them always to be in the know of all the special offers and other treats. “This Visa Premium mobile app lets our customers keep constant track of all the latest news in the Visa world. Having a special offers guide always by your side, that is, in your phone, is extremely handy,’ says Metcombank Chairman

Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company (UMMC) is planning to hand the shares of A.K. Serov Metallurgical Plant’s shares over to Gazprombank so that they can serve as a security. This issue will be considered at UMMC BOD meeting today. The meeting will also be dedicated to estimating the market value of the plant’s shares.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court keeps looking into the claim laid by MDM Bank against Uralchermetavto and Avtoland Sever. The plaintiff wants to be paid 206.47m RUR it is owed. The bank insists on the two defendants paying it the sum in question, as these companies are guarantors for a number of loan agreements, interest payments, and fees. Now ZAO AO Avto Land and OOO Ufa Avto-Land appealed to court asking to bring them into the proceedings as non-party interveners. The court accepted their petitions, and the hearing was postponed till June 4, 2012.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court set the hearing of OOO Riada vs. OOO Barkas for June 8, 2012. The plaintiff placed a claim with the court, demanding that Barkas provide the company with the documentation necessary to establish ownership rights over certain premises in accordance with the existing contract, namely, a proof of full payment for the premises (which serve as the object of investment under an agreement dated February 19, 2008), a proof of no financial claims over the premises, and the transfer act. The premises in question are located on the 12th floor of The Count Orloff

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court rejected AKB Rosbank’s demand to overrule the verdict returned by Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) in Oktyabrsky and Kirovsky Districts of Yekaterinburg that sentenced the bank to a 10,000-ruble fine. Following a complaint from a consumer named I. Cherepanova, Rospotrebnadzor’s division instituted administrative proceedings and carried out an investigation. The inquiry revealed that after AKB Rosbank’s merger with Bank Sociйtй Gйnйrale Vostok, on June 15, 2012, all the rights and obligations relating to a

EVRAZ NTMK set up a special committee to look up into a worker’s injury. A Nizhniy Tagil Iron & Steel Works (NTMK) electrician was found on the railways of NPTs Razvitiye with a broken hip and shin on May 18. It was actually the worker’s day off. The ambulance provided some first aid to the victim and took him to Municipal Clinic 4. It was reported earlier that a nineteen-year-old employee’s legs were cut off when he was trying to crawl under the railway carriages at NTMK shop.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) intends to direct 900m RUR to environmental projects this year, MMK reports. The company adopted an environmental program for 2012 in order to comply with the Russian Federation’s legislative requirements in the field of environmental protection and with the international standard ISO 14001:2004. The program is also targeted at reducing MMK’s environmental impact and enhancing the environmental friendliness of the company’s production process. MMK’s environmental program for this year covers all of the company’s divisions. Among the most important

As Yekaterinburg competes for the right to host EXPO 2020, the site for coordinating the global fair should be found before the end of May, acting Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Evgeny Kuivashev said at a meeting dedicated to the city’s EXPO 2020 application campaign. According to head of Yekaterinburg Architecture, City Planning, and Land Management Administration Mikhail Vyatkin, four locations have been considered as the possible sites: Novokoltsovsky, Ural Federal University, Severno-Shartashsky, and VIZ Pravoberezhny. The winning location must meet quite a few criteria: it should fit

Rimera Group’s SOT successfully underwent the annual audit of its quality management system, which was tested for compliance with the ST RK ISO 9001-2009 standards. The inspectors from QS Azia Sertik spent a few days inspecting all of the Chelyabinsk-based plant’s divisions and SOT’s Magnitogorsk subsidiary and found no violations. ST RK ISO 9001-2009 is the state standard of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and SOT has been certified for compliance with the standard since 2005. The inspection and audit of the certified quality management system is an obligatory procedure for companies willing to

METCOMBANK and Visa are launching a special offer dubbed Golden Time with Visa Gold. Golden Time is a week of treats Visa offers the winners. Every day, the winning customers receive something nice, and on weekends, they can enjoy their stay at one of Rixos Hotels in Turkey. Throughout this Golden Time offer (May 20 to July 20, 2012) every Visa Gold cardholder can win the numerous prizes that vary according to the day of the week. For one, a personal coach workout is drawn every Monday, a restaurant dinner can be won on Wednesdays, and a stay in a hotel in Turkey is available at weekends. To

E.S. Yalamov Ural Mechano-Optical Plant is taking legal action against Ural Federal University. The claim has to do with goodwill protection and was submitted to Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court. ‘Deputy Head of Russian Federation Government Dmitri Rogozin received a letter from Ural Federal University with inaccurate information that impairs our plant’s goodwill. This information did harm to the plant, and we incurred certain losses. We tried complaining to the university and asked them to take this back, but the UFU refused to cooperate. This is why we decided to take legal action,’ the