Germany's Internal Affairs Ministry was forced to halt the construction of the Consulate-General in Yekaterinburg because of the economic recession. The building was originally supposed to have been finished by 2013, Kommersant says. 'The Ministry was faced with the need to economize six months ago. We avoided putting the project on the construction of the consulate on our expense-cutting list till the last minute, but, regrettably, the decision had to be made to freeze it. I personally feel very negative about it, and this is what I told our Russian partners,' the newspaper

The international rating agency announced that Concern Kalina's ruA- national scale rating was not going to change after the cosmetics manufacturer had sold its 100% shareholding in the German Dr. Scheller Cosmetics AG to Coty. Standard & Poor's reports the German affiliated company used to be the source of 30% of Kalina's sales but of less than 10% of EBITDA prior to the sale of the shares. 'We don't think the transaction will affect Kalina's liquidity indicators either, since the company is gradually cutting down on the share of short-term debts in the

Acting Leading Manager of OAO Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) cold-rolling facility’s plate mill shop 11 group Andrei Gorbunov presented his report on MMK’s current production priorities at a recent conference on metal goods for the automobile industry held in Moscow. According to the company executive, one of MMK’s strategic challenges lies in setting up in Russia the automobile body sheet production which will meet all the global standards. This is why the company is currently involved in the construction of cold rolling Mill 2000 in cooperation with the German company SMS Demag.

Chairman of OAO Bank24.ru Sergey Lapshin believes there is no point in engaging in corporate lending in Russia in the next two or three years. This is what he said in the course of Elena Ischeeva’s Top People program broadcast via Banki.ru. ‘Three years ago, I could get money for, say, 15% a year and offer my customers a loan with an annual interest rate of 25%, which meant my margins would reach 10% a year. Let’s take a ten-billion lending portfolio, for instance. I knew that I’d make a billion worth of margins in a year on these ten billions,’ he explains. Now, however, the economic

ZAO Raiffeisenbank’s outlet known as Plotinka at 31 K Malyshev St no longer operates in Yekaterinburg. ‘To let’ announcements regarding the building can already be found on the Internet. The bank has also closed its Na Kosmonavtov office at 21 Kuznetsov St in Ordzhonikidzevsky district of Yekaterinburg. Now Raiffeisenbank’s centrally located Plotinka office had operated for two and a half years. The outlet got its name from a café called Plotinka which used to be located in the building.

Holiday Inn, the famous hotel chain, is now negotiating for a land allotment in Yekaterinburg to put up a hotel there. According to some data, the hotel might be located in a multi-purpose block commonly referred to as Summit at 51a Vosmoye Marta St. It is reported that Summit is to be launched in March 2011. Holiday Inn Hotels first announced they were planning on building their hotel in Yekaterinburg as early as 2007.

OAO Ural Airlines is about to welcome its 1,500,000th passenger of the year aboard. ‘We only needed a few extra days to set a record last year, but in this year 2010 we did manage to break it. This was possible due to an extended destination network. Last year, we operated quite a few flights from Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Novokuznetsk, and Sochi. What is more, we were the third largest carrier in terms of the number of flights operated from Domodedovo Airport in Moscow,’ the airline’s press service reports. Ural Airlines’ experts have calculated that the company’s 1,500,000th passenger will be

VTB Bank denies buying Home Credit & Finance Bank despite the claims made by the owner of Tinkoff Credit Systems Oleg Tinkoff via his Twitter account, RIA Novosti says. ‘VTB Bank cannot confirm any acquisition of this kind. These are only rumors,’ VTB Finance Director Herbert Moos asked the bank’s press service to state. Now Home Credit & Finance Bank’s controlling shareholder the Czech Republic’s PPF Investments Group also said that it was not going to comment on ‘market gossip’.

OOO Lardo Electronics Company has recently been declared a dishonest supplier. The statement was made by Sverdlovsk Region division of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service. The reason for labeling the company so harshly was that Lardo Electronics backed out of its earlier agreement with B.N.Yeltsin Ural Federal University which provided for the delivery of a laptop and computer parts and components worth 129,350 RUR altogether.

Sberbank of Russia placed a petition with Belgorod Region Arbitration Court, asking to stop the bankruptcy proceedings which ZAO Energomash (part of Energomash Group) is undergoing at the moment. Instead, the bank wants the company to get a new, external manager/trustee in bankruptcy, Russia’s Legal & Court Information Agency (RAPSI) reports. Now Belgorod Region Arbitration Court ruled on January 19, 2010 that Belgorod-based ZAO Energomash was to undergo bankruptcy proceedings. The bankruptcy application was actually placed with the court by Bank VTB. On May 24, 2010 Energomash was

The revenues of OOO VIZ-Stal (the asset of Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works, NTMK) went down by 15% in the third quarter of 2010 compared with the previous quarter. The plant explains their financial performance in the third quarter had to with shrinking product sales. The plant’s revenues decreased by 26% over one year, which was a result of lower prices for rolled products for the electric industry. The company’s gross profit plunged by 21% in the third quarter of 2010 and by 63% over the year. ‘Another reason our gross profit decreased against the earlier periods was that the hot-rolled

OAO VympelCom insists that no violations of the contract occurred when their customer lawyer Ivan Kadochnikov was provided with Internet access. ‘Our company always sticks with the terms of the company-customer agreements. If Mr. Kadochnikov pays for the speed of 25 Mb per second, he will be provided with Internet connection at exactly this speed. His complaint will be considered by VympelCom as soon as possible. We intend to check the speed of Internet connection at his computer, and, if the actual speed turns out to be different from that stated in the contract, VympelCom will make sure the

Russian banks kept on cutting down on the number of their home offices throughout the year, so the total number of bank subsidiaries in Russia decreased by 208 units in January-September 2010, that is, from 3,183 down to 2,975, the Central Bank of Russia reports. For one, the number of Sberbank of Russia’s subsidiaries on the state register dropped from 645 to 580. At the same time, the number of Russian banks’ subsidiaries abroad went up from five to six.

OAO Concern Kalina, a large cosmetics manufacturer, announced recently that their Switzerland-based Kalina International SA signed a deal that would result in selling 100% of Dr. Scheller Cosmetics AG (a German cosmetics business) shares to Coty Inc Group. Under this agreement, Concern Kalina retains control over skin care brands Dr. Scheller and Phyto Solution as well as some immovable assets in Germany. BNP Paribas acted as the concern’s accompanying consultant in the deal. Kalina’s General Director Alexander Petrov explained that selling the shares resulted from the company’s new strategy

The citizens of Krasnoturinsk, Sverdlovsk Region, keep trying to protect their rights over the company housing of UC RUSAL’s Bogoslovsky smelter in court. The locals are afraid that the plant might get them evicted from their apartments in case they get fired or retire. According to Sobesednik, people will probably be evicted even from the corporate dormitory-type accommodation. The court hearing is to begin this month. ‘The situation first changed when the plant became a joint stock company in 1992, and then changed even more dramatically when the business got a new proprietor and came to be

A number of Omega Group’s members have recently placed their bankruptcy applications with Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court. The list includes OOO James and OOO Resta Management, the court’s website states. In fact, the Group’s OOO Alcomarket Magnum and OOO Alcomarket Magnum-4 were declared insolvent as early as September and October 2010, whereas in June 2010, Omega’s wholesale division OOO Omega Spirits Group was also declared bust. According to the data available from the court, Sberbank of Russia is still trying to make the Group members pay over 126 million RUR worth of debts. The

OAO VympelCom actually insists that no violations were involved in providing Internet access to Ivan Kadochnikov, a lawyer and one of the company’s Yekaterinburg-based customers. ‘Our company adheres strictly to all the terms of company-customer agreements. If Mr. Kadochnikov pays for the speed of 25 Mb per second, the Internet connection is provided at exactly this speed. We are going to look into Ivan Kadochnikov’s application at once. The company is going to check the access speed on his computer. If this turns out to be true that the actual speed does not coincide with the declared one,

OAO SverdlovEnergoSbyt, a power supplier, set a limit on the power supply of a Krasnouralsk-based state-run chemical plant. Only some limited amount of electric power is now delivered to the plant’s transportation department, storage facilities, and maintenance rooms. The supplier claims the plant fails to meet its contractual obligations, as it already owes SverdlovEnergoSbyt 17.4 million RUR and has over 85.2 million RUR worth of debts featured in its bankruptcy case into the bargain. The chemical plant hasn’t been paying its electricity bills since December 2009, SverdlovEnergoSbyt’s press

The number of people arriving in Sverdlovsk Region exceeded the number of those leaving the place by 2,900 people in January-September 2010. The migrant inflow decreased by 31% in nine months of 2010 compared with January-September 2009.

Four new hotels are expected to start operating in Yekaterinburg next year. These are: a third extension to the Atrium Palace Hotel in Belinsky St (eighty rooms), a hotel/apartment block in Grazhdanskaya St (one hundred rooms), and two mini hotels of ten rooms each at 27 Sverdlov St and 21 Kuznetsov St, says Deputy Mayor Viktor Konteev’s press officer Ilona Starodubtseva. Meanwhile, three hotels have already been opened in Yekaterinburg this year: the Novotel Hotel (two hundred rooms), the Sibirsky Tract Hotel (forty-six rooms), and a ten-room mini hotel called Park Vista. This means the city