UC RUSAL presented its One Hundred Cool Projects social welfare contest in Yekaterinburg on September 10, 2007. The contest is targeted at supporting the community service initiatives by sixth- to tenth-grade middle and high school students; for the first time this year, some contestants come from Kamensk-Uralskiy, Krasnoturinskiy, Severouralskiy, and Nizhneserginskiy districts of Sverdlovsk Region. UC RUSAL is going to spend 17,000,000 RUR on grants between July 2008 and May 2009. The One Hundred Cool Projects contest is UC RUSAL’s first grant program that has been held on a yearly basis

‘Yuri Repeta, chairman of Noviy Grad (the local developer), keeps saying the municipal authorities and NGOs are preventing the company from doing their job, which is why the buildings are commissioned with great delays, but this is not true,’ Vasiliy chairman of Right to a Dwelling, a local NGO, said to a UrBC reporter. Mr. Ganzhin feels Mr. Repeta is simply trying to make people believe he plays by the rules while suffering from the outer intervention, yet all of Noviy Grad’s problems actually stem from the company’s own dishonesty. ‘Noviy Grad never fell prey to circumstances and is not

‘The development of Sverdlovsk Region’s housing maintenance and utilities services is still being hindered by the painstakingly sluggish payment of housing bills by the local population. In fact, people have grown so careless that their debts come to something between 1 billion and 1.7 billion RUR a month. We’ve tried to get tougher with the non-payers, yet they still owe the services 7.8 billion RUR altogether,’ Sverdlovsk Region’s Deputy Minister for Construction and Housing Maintenance and Utilities Bogdan Protsyk said at the regional cabinet meeting. Mr. Protsyk claimed the region’s

‘We haven’t heard a thing of a possible tobacco price increase yet, but this could easily happen. Producers have a right to raise prices for objective reasons, because of the inflation, for instance. If they choose to do so, tobacco may grow over 15% more expensive than now,’ Westline Company Ltd’s Commercial Director Olga Lototskaya said to UrBC. Starting January 1, 2007, tobacco producers have to indicate the maximum retail price on each pack of cigarettes they make, and this price can’t be changed any more often than once a month. Rumor has it that a number of tobacco companies are

SKB-Bank organized a cabbage-throwing contest in Surgut on November 4, 2007 (a state holiday in Russia and the day the bank celebrated its 17th anniversary). The championship was held in a square next to Surgut State University; the agenda of the event included both the cabbage-throwing proper and other entertaining activities like round dancing, cabbage volleyball, and treating people to cabbage pies and cabbage-filled pancakes. A 29-year-old plumber Vyacheslav Soldatov, whose cabbage flew a distance of forty-seven meters, won the first prize of $300. Such championships have already been

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for up to 30 days went down by 82.89% (from 85.734 million RUR to 14.666 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel took a pre-election leave until November 30, 2007. The decision had to be taken due to the Governor’s taking part in the State Duma elections. Head of Sverdlovsk Region Government Viktor Koksharov is going to be acting Governor for the time being.

SKB-Bank, one of Russia’s largest provincial banks and a major player on the Ural market, celebrated its 17th anniversary on November 2, 2007. The bank was founded on the basis of Sverdlovsk Region branch of Agroprombank on November 2, 1990. It has been Sverdlovsk Region Government’s authorized bank since February 1996. In 2001, SKB-Bank found a valuable strategic partner in Sinara Group; in 2007, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development became one of SKB-Bank’s shareholders. The volume of SKB-Bank’s assets rose from 2.6 billion RUR in 2002 to over 28 billion RUR in 2007; its loan

'A lawsuit against UralTransBank and Bank Severnaya Kazna regarding violation of antimonopoly laws has been filed and is soon to be processed in court. We are now busy collecting all the papers needed for the case. Should we need some more documents, there will probably emerge a court’s ruling suggesting that the two banks in question provide them,’ Deputy Head of Federal Antimonopoly Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division Sergey Volkov said to UrBC. The Service first took legal action against two Yekaterinburg-based banks in October 2007. UralTransBank and Severnaya Kazna were suspected

'The potential of AMUR car factory’s project related to assembling of ten- and twenty-ton dumpers is hard to gauge yet. We have to wait till we see at least one truck made by the factory before talking of the future of the project,’ the spokesperson for GAZ Group (the holding AMUR car factory is part of) said to a UrBC reporter. The factory is planning to assemble ten- and twenty-ton dumpers supplied by FAW, a Chinese enterprise. The project has been estimated to require $1m worth of investments. Some experts believe AMUR won’t be able to win any share of the Russian truck and dumper

According to the Expert Ural magazine (Vol. 40 (303)), Ural Treasures Bank was rated the Urals’ 16th largest bank in terms of asset volume in the first half of 2007: the bank’s assets amounted to 8,156 million RUR on July 1, 2007. It was also declared 20th largest bank in terms of ATM cash turnover, which means the bank was nicely promoted from the 11th position it was given in July 2006. In addition, Ural Treasures Bank became the Urals’ 25th largest bank in terms of business loan portfolio, 14th largest bank in terms of securities portfolio, 12th largest bank in terms of the volume of

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by TyumenEnergoBank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for up to 30 days went down by 59.1% (from 96.789 million RUR to 39.58 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

Volume of Concern Kalina’s net profit went down by 10% in January-September 2007 compared to a year earlier. The company’s net profit dropped from 372,581,000 RUR in January-September 2006 to 336,093,000 RUR (or by 36,448,000 RUR) in nine months of 2007.

'Rosaviation had every reason to impose sanctions on air carriers whose charter flights are delayed on regular basis. There is simply no other way to make these airlines take their contractual obligations seriously,’ Director of Inna Tour Travel Agency Inna Averyanova said to UrBC. Rosaviation’s sanctions touched upon the carriers whose charter flights kept getting delayed en masse during the summer period; the number of flights these companies were allowed to operate in the winter season was cut by 20%. VIM Avia, it turns out, was one of the unfortunate airlines. Ms Averyanova feels

The value of net assets of Energy - Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by 6.71% between October 29, 2007 and October 30, 2007. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 4,427,022.51 RUR on October 29, 2007 to 4,130,034.41 RUR on October 30, 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by VUZ Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for up to 30 days went down by 96.65% (from 31.268 million RUR to 1.048 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

Sredneuralsky Copper Smelting Plant reports its net loss rose by 818.4% in July-September 2007; the company’s net loss went up from 19.66 million RUR in the second quarter of 2007 to 160.901 million RUR, or by 141.241 million RUR, in the third quarter of the year.

Chelyabinsk Iron & Steel Works (part of Mechel Group) reports its net profit dropped by over 10% in the third quarter of 2007. Their net profit went down from 2,099,440,000 RUR in April-June 2007 to 1,598,043,000 RUR in July-September 2007, which means it decreased by 501,397,000 RUR, or by 23.9%. This can be explained by a decrease in metal product prices and an increase in the prime cost per one manufactured item.

A press conference on the bank’s new developmental stages organized by URSA Bank’s top management and the bank’s business partners was held in Interfax’s press center. It was announced that Russia New Growth Fund managed by Troika Capital Partners (TCP) had bought URSA Bank’s shareholding consisting of 7.4% of the bank’s ordinary shares acquired from S.M. Capital Group. ‘Troika Dialog was the first investment company to start doing business with URSA Bank long before other investors first heard of this provincial bank. Today, URSA Bank is one of Russia’s most successful banks,’ Troika

Asha Metallurgical Works reports its profit dropped by over 10% in the third quarter of 2007. The company’s net profit decreased from 506,739,648 RUR in April-June 2007 to 219,174,150 RUR in July-September 2007, which means profits went down by 287,564,498 RUR, or by 56.7%. This had to do with smaller sales revenues and prime cost growth. The company’s sales revenues dropped by 6.4% due to smaller production output and lower transfer prices. The prime cost of the company’s products rose by 10.7% due to raw materials becoming more expensive and due to a number of overhauls conducted by the