HSBC Russian daughter enterprise HSBC Bank is selling a portion of its retail business to Citibank, Interfax reports. According to HSBC, the assets involved in the transaction were worth 305.8m RUR on March 31, 2011. The deal is expected to go through in the third quarter of 2011. HSBC decided to close its private banking and retail divisions in Russia and to focus on the business customer sector in April 2011. In fact, another large British Bank, Barclays, also made the decision to stop working on the retail services in Russia a little while earlier, Interfax observes.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) reports its has successfully undergone a technical audit carried out by Renault experts. Based on the results of the audit, MMK received an approval for the delivery of hot dip galvanized rolled metal stock meant for the manufacturing of automobile internal parts. The confirmation of the fact that MMK’s technologies comply with Renault’s modern standards is an important step on the way to acceptation that will later on allow us to make serial deliveries to both Russian and foreign customers,’ MMK reports. Now MMK has been successfully undergoing its

The annual general meeting of VSMPO-AVISMA Corporation’s stockholders took place in Berezniki, Perm Territory, recently. The year 2010 was a crucial one for the company; the troubles of 2009 were still felt, but we nevertheless managed to lay a foundation for further growth. For one, our key performance indicators came to look better. Even though our sales revenues went down by slightly less than 5% last year compared with the year 2009, our net profit still soared by 240%. This sounds impressive, even though there is still much to work on in terms of money in the year 2011,’ says the

A monument dedicated to the king of pop will be unveiled in Yekaterinburg on June 25, 2011; the initiative was put forth by Invincible (Michael Jackson’s Russian fan club) a year ago. For one, Yekaterinburg has already got a Michael Jackson wall next to the Beatles monument. Michael Jackson’s admirers gather there on regular basis, while the fan club rehearses the dances inspired by his video clips. In fact, several monuments dedicated to Michael Jackson have been introduced in Europe since 2009. Now all fans will have a new place to get together. This is going to be Russia’s first monument

Deputy Head of Yekaterinburg Municipal Council for City Planning, Transportation, and Environment Evgeniy Lipovitch held a meeting devoted to the strategic project on the modernization of the existing railway node in Yekaterinburg. The meeting participants used the decision made by Yekaterinburg Municipal Duma on June 10, 2003 (No. 40/6, On Yekaterinburg’s Strategic Plan) and the ruling by the city council as of February 9, 2011 (On the Development, Implementation, and Prolongation of Yekaterinburg Strategic Development Projects) as their starting points to consider the details of some of the

The annual general meeting of Ural Instrument-Making Plant’s stockholders has been put off by over one month, namely, from June 25, 2011 to July 29, 2011. The news was carried by Oblastnaya Gazeta. As is known, the company’s Board of Directors suggested that the annual report for 2010 should not be approved, that no dividend should be declared, and no premiums paid to the BOD members. It is also recommended that the stockholders terminate the powers of the enterprise’s current Director-General Georgy Vassilyev before the actual end of his term.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Misharin chaired a meeting of Ural Federal University Supervisory Board. The meeting was dedicated to the main directions of the university’s development in 2011-2012 and its educational, international, and financial activity. Rector of Ural Federal University Viktor Koksharov pointed out that getting as many students as possible was not the priority; the quality of teaching was. He explained there were some problems there: only 61% of faculty, in fact, have their PhDs, whereas the share of younger lecturers was rather meager. This is why the

SKB-Bank was awarded a special prize by one of its correspondent banks VTB Bank (Deutschland) AG in the Best Money Order Processing category. SKB-Bank has been handling money orders using an international SWIFT system since 1993. Certain fill-in formats are used for processing the payments, so if the formats are complied with, the orders are processed by a correspondent bank automatically, without an operator’s help. Automation of payment processing naturally makes the entire procedure much speedier, so as a result, the money orders get to their addressees much faster. At the moment, 98.15%

The officers of the Internal Affairs Department and Yekaterinburg Customs disclosed an illegal workshop that dealt in the production of fake branded goods on the outskirts of Yekaterinburg, the press service of Ural Customs Administration reports. Yekaterinburg Customs Intellectual Property Rights Protection Department officials and the officers of Yekaterinburg Consumer Market Offenses Department inspected a number of premises (owned by unidentified individuals) upon the request of the trademark owners Adidas AG and Adidas International Marketing B.V. Vlasta Consulting, Moscow. Some

Sverdlovsk Region and Rosatom are about to sign an agreement on socioeconomic cooperation; the issue was discussed at Governor Alexander Misharin’s recent meeting with the state-run corporation representatives. The draft agreement covers a number of important projects where the regional authorities and the corporation’s management could be partners. For one, the agreement would provide for the introduction of a hi tech cluster on the premises of Electrokhimpribor. This enterprise, which was set up in 1947 and now employs most of the people in the locality, deals in special civil and defense

Once the summer is here, small and medium enterprise owners can enjoy the opportunity of managing their available cash more efficiently, as the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development raised all of its ruble deposit rates on June 8, 2011. The increase amounted to 0.1% to 1% a year on top of the existing rates, depending on the deposit period, the amount of money deposited, and the deposit type.

The rating agency Expert RA rated Reserve Bank’s business solvency at B+, that is, Sufficient Business Solvency level. The agency reports that the bank’s rating was supported by the good instant and current liquidity indicators, a reasonably high level of the lending portfolio backup, and an impressive diversification of the business lending portfolio in terms of the borrowing companies’ activities. Then, the bank’s business solvency is also facilitated by the great level of off-balance debt liabilities backup: these are covered for by the highly liquid assets; besides, the bank only took

Former Head of BrokerCreditService Financial Group’s Ulan-Ude division Evgeniy Marchuk now came to run the company’s Yekaterinburg branch. Viktor Nemikhin, who was head of the local branch for over ten years, moved on to Otkrytiye Broker House in April 2011, taking a number of employees along. Our former top manager chose to pursue a new development and career path and left the company, taking his team with him. We could see clearly that in the last two years Chelyabinsk, for example, has outstripped Yekaterinburg in terms of sales profits. Perm is following suit,’ Marchuk told Echo Moskvy in

Alfa Invest reduced its share in Uralkhimmash from 21.6776% down to 0.3836%. According to the company’s data, OOO Brenta bought a 21.2940% stake in the business at the same time.

Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport is not going to declare any dividend for the year 2010. Such was the BOD’s recent recommendation for the annual general meeting. The issue of dividends has, in fact, been considered before. Fore on, the BOD was unable to make a final decision as early as the meeting on May 25, 2011.

The rating agency Moody's upped SKB-Bank’s international rating. The agency’s experts explain in their report that the promotion reflects the bank’s growing share of the market: this has gone up impressively over the last two years. According to a report compiled in accordance with the International Accounting Standards as of December 31, 2010, SKB-Bank’s consolidated assets amounted to $2.78bn, its own funds came to $198m, and its net profit reached $23.5m, the agency reports.

The foreign trade turnover within Nizhniy Tagil Customs area amounted to $1.2bn in the five months of 2011. About 85.8% of the total goods turnover came from or went to the countries of the far abroad, whereas 14.2% of goods came from or went to the CIS member states. In January-May 2011, the United States, the Netherlands, and Ukraine made up for the most of the foreign trade volume within Nizhniy Tagil Customs area: their shares in the total turnover volume came to 16.8%, 9.9%, and 9.6%, respectively. The shares of the Czech Republic, Germany, India, the Republic of Korea, Italy, China,

Ural Airlines started offering flight vouchers for sale recently. A voucher that covers a flight from Yekaterinburg to Moscow or from Moscow to Yekaterinburg comes at a price of 5,000 RUR (all fees included); a voucher for a flight from Yekaterinburg to Saint Petersburg or from Saint Petersburg to Yekaterinburg costs 6,500 RUR (all fees included). Vouchers are available from the flight attendants on board if you are flying from Yekaterinburg to Moscow or from Moscow to Yekaterinburg or from Yekaterinburg to Saint Petersburg or from Saint Petersburg to Yekaterinburg as well as via on online

We have no troubles with the vegetable deliveries from Europe. We actually buy arugula, cherry tomatoes, and lettuces from Metro, and this company has switched to the Israeli produce as soon as the ban on European vegetables was imposed,’ Director-General of Coffee House Yekaterinburg Oleg Schelkonogov told UrBC. Now Sverdlovsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog) notified all the local catering companies of the ban imposed on the import or sale of nearly all kinds of vegetables grown in the European Union.

United Russia’s People’s Control group members keep inspecting the food stores of Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk Region. The activists focused on eleven shops, including three retail outlets of the national chain store Pyaterochka. The first thing that strikes one upon entering a Pyaterochka supermarket is the lack of information regarding the phone numbers of Rospotrebnadzor experts that customers could call to complain about their rights, or the those of the Business Activity Promotion Department. Then, eggs were placed right on the floor instead of getting displayed on a refrigerated shelf,’