OOO Barclays-Bank that was bought out from the British Barclays might get its older name of Expobank back, sources close to the company informed Kommersant. According to this report, the bank’s new owners have already submitted their application to register the name of Expobank to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. OOO Barclays-Bank is the former Moscow-based Expobank that was bought by the British group for $745m early in 2008 and sold to partners, headed by Igor Kim, in October 2011. It was earlier reported that the new proprietors were going to launch a 25% layoff and to cut the

Uralkhimmash Board of Directors decided recently that the BOD Chairman Daniyar Kamilov should resign. Kamilov has been succeeded by former Uralkhimmash Deputy BOD Chairman Sergey Yelizarov. Uralkhimmash manufactures machinery for the oil and gas sector as well as for the power and nuclear industries, chemicals production business, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgical enterprises, and construction companies.

Germany’s Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Urban Development Peter Ramsauer spoke very approvingly of Sverdlovsk Region and Germany’s collaboration, especially of the partnership that exists between Siemens and Sinara Transport Machines: the two companies are working on Lastochka electric trains; the Minister also praised the level of Yekaterinburg’s development, Sinara Group’s PR Department reports. Peter Ramsauer and Sverdlovsk Region Minister for International and Foreign Economic Relations Alexander Kharlov met at Koltsovo Airport the day before when Germany’s official group of

The Consulates-General of Cyprus and Ukraine and a trade representation of the Turkish Embassy in Russia will be opened in Yekaterinburg before the end of this year. What is more, the honorary consul of the Republic of Nicaragua in Yekaterinburg Sergey Konstantinopolsky will assume office at the end of January. As a matter of fact, twenty-one official representations of foreign states operate in the Urals’ capital at the moment, including eleven consulates-general, nine honorary consuls’ offices, and one trade representation of the Republic of Byelorussia’s Embassy in the Russian Federation.

A number of local experts are currently working on gathering the necessary data on the Urals’ capital after the commission to this extent was issued by Head of Yekaterinburg Municipal Council Alexander Yakob. The information is to be submitted to the NGO EXPO 2020 Application Committee. The experts aim to enhance the efficiency of presenting Yekaterinburg on the international arena. The action plan for the events that need to be coordinated in Yekaterinburg was recently sent to the EXPO 2020 application committee’s leaders for consideration and approval. Now the application committee was set

The management of Nizhniy Tagil Customs met with the law-enforcement agencies’ representatives in the last quarter of 2011 in order to come up with a joint action plan aimed at protecting the consumer market from counterfeit goods. It was reported that the intellectual property rights infringements disclosed by Nizhniy Tagil Customs officers were most common in the field of consumer industry (clothes and footwear) and data storage devices (DVDs), while goods bearing famous logos such as Adidas, Lacoste, Umbro, and Nike were among the most frequently pirated products.

The domestic flights terminal of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport had to be closed temporarily because of smoke pollution. A short-circuit failure occurred at the lighting switchboard room at 8:48 PM, causing the cables to melt and producing a blanket of smoke. The airport’s firefighting brigade arrived at the scene of the incident and put the fire out. Koltsovo Airport’s ground crew decided to have the passengers in the domestic flights terminal relocated to the international terminal, from where flights to Moscow, Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok departed. No passengers or airport staff were

The cosmetics manufacturer Concern Kalina’s Board of Directors suggested that the company’s shareholders should accept Unilever Rus’s proposal regarding the purchase of the company’s 966,740 shares. The offer was made to the enterprise on January 10, 2012. The proposed price came to 4,267.92 RUR.

By the end of November 2011, Home Credit & Finance Bank’s share of POS express loans market dropped below 25% for the first time since quite a while; the decrease amounted to 3.3% since the beginning of the year 2011, Kommersant reports. According to Frank Research Group’s findings, the POS lending market’s volume reached 175bn RUR on December 1, 2011. Home Credit & Finance Bank is still the market leader, as it was at the start of last year, but its share has decreased below 25% for the first time since 2009 and amounted to 24.5%. The bank’s share of the market kept going down

Ural Airlines’ passenger turnover rose by 40% in 2011, the company’s press service reports. In December 2011, the air carrier operated 1,691 flights (which exceeded the figures for December 2010 by 30%), including 534 international flights, 754 domestic flights, and 403 flights around the CIS. 187,633 customers flew with Ural Airlines in the last month of the year, which was 66% more than a year earlier. 70,165 customers were international travelers, 75,355 people used the company’s domestic flights, and 42,113 passengers traveled to or from the CIS member states. The actual passenger

A worker employed at UC RUSAL’s Ural smelter tried to commit suicide because his labor contract wouldn’t be renewed. It is reported that the hydrometallurgical equipment operator Vladimir Kalugin tried to kill himself by slitting his throat open right in his workplace. Shortly before this suicide attempt, Kalugin was informed that his fixed-term contract was not going to be renewed. He still had three years to go before reaching the official retirement age. ‘First aid was provided immediately at the scene of the incident, then Vladimir was placed in the hands of surgeons from the trauma unit

The corporate quality management system of Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) was recently re-certified for compliance with the international standard ISO 9001:2008. The audit was conducted by the British company Lloyd’s Register. The checks involved all the Russian and foreign enterprises of the company as well as its trade representations and daughter enterprises. Among the corporate quality management system’s components subject to testing were the management’s responsibility, resource management, product development, improvements, and some others. At the end of the auditing procedure,

The United States Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul is to arrive in Russia next week; the exact date of his visit to Yekaterinburg has not been announced yet, the United States Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg’s press secretary Lada Tikhonova told UrBC. ‘Michael McFaul is expected to come to Moscow next week. It’s difficult to say just now when he is going to visit the capital of the Urals. Nevertheless, I should say that all of his predecessors did pay a visit to Yekaterinburg,’ Ms Tikhonova said. The press secretary also added that a video conference might be held with McFaul. ‘The

Nizhniy Tagil Customs points processed 1,360 entry forms for goods accounted for in the foreign trade turnover statistics in December 2011, the spokesperson for Ural Customs Administration reports. As far as Nizhniy Tagil Customs area was concerned, in December its most active foreign trade partners were Thailand (whose share of the local foreign trade turnover reached 15.7%), the United States (11.6%), the Netherlands (9.5%), Ukraine (8.7%), Iran (6.9%), Great Britain (6.5%), Germany (5.9%), Italy (5.5%), Denmark (5.1%), the Czech Republic (4.3%), and India (3.9%).

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court confirmed a voluntary settlement between the plaintiff Yekaterinburg City and the defendant Valode & Pistre Management SA. The plaintiff is to pay the defendant ?2.3m; this information is available via the court’s website. Now Yekaterinburg City insisted that its contractor agreement with the French company Valode & Pistre Management SA for the completion of some design work should be declared invalid in the part relating to obligations. The plaintiff also insisted on being paid back ?13.5m that had earlier been transferred to the agency as an

Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (a member of ChTPZ Group) has been successfully certified for compliance with the international standard of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (OHSAS 18001). The OHSAS 18001 certificate confirms that a company systematically works on reducing production and professional risks and cares for the personnel’s safety at work. Prior to receiving the certificate, Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant completed a number of crucial tasks: the plant developed the necessary normative documentation, identified and assessed the production activity risks, trained its

The files relating to the criminal lawsuit involving the Russian businessmen Oleg Deripaska and Iskander Makhmudov arrived in Moscow after the case was first processed by the Spanish authorities, Interfax’s informed sources report. ‘This is a rather bulky dossier comprising tens of volumes, which is why it took over a month to have the files delivered from Spain to Russia,’ a source familiar with the case told the agency. According to this informant, the files arrived in Russia at the end of December 2011.

The United States Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul is to arrive in Russia next week; the exact date of his visit to Yekaterinburg has not been announced yet, the United States Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg’s press secretary Lada Tikhonova told UrBC. ‘Michael McFaul is expected to come to Moscow next week. It’s difficult to say just now when he is going to visit the capital of the Urals. Nevertheless, I should say that all of his predecessors did pay a visit to Yekaterinburg,’ Ms Tikhonova said. The press secretary also added that a video conference might be held with McFaul. ‘The

The auction aimed at selling a 100% stake in the state-run insurance company Yugoria (one of Russia’s Top 15 insurers) has been scheduled for June 11, 2012, Russian Auction House reports. 100% of Yugoria’s shares belongs to Khanty-Mansiysky Autonomous Region Yugra. The region’s government has already determined that the opening bid should come to 5.2bn RUR. The company’s authorized capital comes to 1.83bn RUR. Russian Auction House was appointed as the seller of the region’s property to private proprietors, RIA Novosti points out. Applications to take part in the auction are already being

Ural Airlines finished last year off with yet another record. On New Year’s Eve, December 31, the airline’s 2,500.000th passenger of the year checked in for a flight for the first time in the carrier’s history, the company’s press service reports. This record-setting customer was Alexei Kharitonov, who was flying from Yekaterinburg to Barcelona via flight 3787. Alexei is Ural Airlines’ long-time customer who joined the company’s bonus Wings Club in January 2007 and flew over 150 times with this airline. The air carrier is going to contact the winner very soon to present him some valuable