On May 26, 2006, Chelyaboblcomunenergo JSC held the general shareholder meeting that resulted in the positive assessment of the company’s financial activity in 2005 (the annual report and the accounting report), and of the profit and loss statement. The shareholders decided to pass the issued equity dividend for 2005 and also elected eleven Board Members, the inspection committee, and the company’s Auditor (UralAudit Ltd.). The GD elections resulted in appointing Maxim Aronov General Director for the next five years.

‘Vysokogorskiy Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise JSC (part of Evraz Group) has come up with a scheme to reduce production costs in 2006. The most significant change would affect the batch mixture that comes with the agglomerate as we are going to add some martite and slime of Ivanovskiy slime depository to it; this is expected to reduce out expenses dramatically,’ says the spokesperson for Evraz Group. ‘Another way to cut costs is to upgrade the turbine compressor of Yestyuninskaya mine, which is going to pay off handsomely (a 800% return on investments is predicted). The company is also

Alexander Rybkin was appointed Managing Director of Metallurgical Works of Zlatoust JSC on June 1, 2006, succeeding Pavel Gurkalov who is now going to become Deputy GD of ESTAR Ltd., the managing company for the Works, and head the company’s special steel division, the spokesperson for ESTAR said to UrBC representative. Mr Rybkin has been working for the Works for 38 years and was Production Director before his new appointment.

The executives of Ural Turbine Works CJSC (part of Renova Group) participated in the presentation of Reconstruction of Cogeneration Plant-12 Project alongside with Solikamskbumprom JSC that has been offered the K-17 turbine ordered from the UTB well before the deadline. ‘The company considered the project to be highly important, that is why we completed the order early using the parts we had in stock,’ said Commercial Director of Ural Turbine Works Alexei Sedunin. Within the framework of the reconstruction project, a new condensing electricity production cycle was installed at the heat power

Following the investigations carried out on two employers (CEO of Yuryuzanskiy Machine-building Works M. Bukhvalov and former director of Yuzhniy Ural JSC A. Lebedev) in May, some indicting documents were sent to the public prosecution bodies in order to charge the possible offenders with violation of Clause 145 of Russian Criminal Code, the spokesperson for Chelyabinsk Labor Inspectorate said to UrBC representative. This led to taking legal action against Mr Lebedev for arrears of wages. In the course of the second examination of Yuzhniy Ural JSC premises (run by G. Byvaltsev), there emerged

Uralprombank JSC has experienced some changes in the Board participation in the company’s authorized capital. Chairman Valeriy Efros bought 43.996% of the bank’s ordinary shares (his previous share comprised 31.826%). At the same time, the share of Mikhail Parfentiev, head of the bank’s management, dropped from 4.397% to 0%. The same happened to the share of deputy head Yuriy Kachalin (from 3.98% to 0%), the company’s report says. According to Mr Parfentiev, all of these changes were discussed with and approved by the Central Bank within 1.5 months. He refused to explain these changes though

Chelyabinsk Mechanical Works JSC has accumulated 19.7 million RUR worth of debts by May 1, 2006, the spokesperson for Chelyabinsk Labor Inspectorate said to UrBC representative. The other big debtors are Sinara of Kaslinskiy area, (623,000 RUR), Engineering Networks Ltd. of Trekhgorniy (599,000 RUR), Yuryuzanskiy Machine-building Works JSC of Yuryuzan (589,000 RUR) Colos-S Ltd. of Kartalinskiy area (449,000 RUR), BZGO-Detal Ltd. of Satka (374,000 RUR).

Chelyabenergo JSC is going to hold the general shareholder meeting on June 2, 2006. The points on the agenda include the assessment of the company’s annual report, the accounting report, and profit and loss statement as well as the issue of dividends and amendments to the company’s papers. The shareholders will also elect the Board Members, the inspection committee, and the company’s Auditor. They should consider delegating the sole executive authority to Ural and Volga MRSK JSC as well.

On May 26, 2006, experts of Ural Turbine Works CJSC, member of RENOVA Group, took part in the presentation of Heat Power Plant No 12 Reconstruction Project by Solikamskbumprom JSC. Earlier, Ural Turbine Works completed K-17 condensing turbine for Heat Power Plant No 12 well before the due date, so the company considers the project to be highly important, PR-department of Ural Turbine Works CJSC said. Within the framework of the reconstruction project, a new condensing electricity production cycle was installed at the heat power plant. The cycle includes new condensing turbine produced by Ural

On May 31, 2006, the Stockholders of Pneumostroymachine JSC declared dividend of 2.43 RUR per common share with nominal value of 0.05RUR. The company is going to pay the dividends for 2005 before July 18, 2006. To this end, the company is going to assign 103,643,388 RUR.

Home Credit & Finance Bank (HCFB) reported the results of its activity in the first quarter of 2006 according to IAS. As the bank’s accounting statements imply, the bank’s net profit within the reporting period came to 125m RUR and therefore went down by 46.6% compared to the net profit of 234m RUR during the same period of 2005. The bank’s pre-tax profit within the first quarter of 2006 came to 188m RUR. The corresponding figure for 2005 is 311m RUR. A decrease in the mentioned figures is a result of the bank’s ongoing investments into the core business development and the loan portfolio

Within the next few years, the dam of Techenskiy tandem reservoir system is to be fortified, Head of Federal Atomic Power Agency Sergey Kirienko said in the course of a meeting with the executives of Mayak Production Association. As the company’s spokesperson said to UrBC representative, Mr Kirienko took a helicopter flight around the dam and asked detailed questions about the scientific, explorative, and construction aspects of the fortification process. Even though he was generally satisfied with the way things were being handled, Mr Kirienko still demanded that Mayak speed up in order to

The Personnel Department of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil (part of Evraz Group) hosted a workshop on protection of intellectual property rights. The executives of a company dealing in patents and legal protection of newly invented goods put the employees of the Complex into the picture of different ways inventors and innovators can successfully protect their interests in an industrial company. Over 30 employees attended the meeting altogether, including the executives from the Innovation and Patents Department, the Legal Department, the representatives of the converter

Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Industrial Complex JSC accumulated 52.365 million RUR worth of debts in overdue bills payable by March 31, 2006; their total bills payable come to 7,016,635,000 RUR, the company’s spokesperson says. In the first quarter of 2006, the company produced 67,868,000 tons of ferrosilicon, 82,046 tons of ferrochrome, 3,354 tons of silicon manganese, and 2,336 tons of silicocalcium. Their total sales proceeds came to 3,477,913,000 RUR, the net profit in January to March 2006 to 41.643 million RUR.

European Expert Commission gave Chairman of SUAL Holding JSC Viktor Wechselberg the international diploma for ‘Significant contribution to the successful realization of the international social partnership standards’. The diploma was given as a reward for such SUAL projects as Drug and Drink Addiction Prophylaxis and Rehabilitation and International Partnership in Decreasing Risks of AIDS/HIV; the company carries out these projects in Sverdlovsk Region, in cooperation with the National Peace Foundation (USA) and Institute of Gender and Social Politics. The projects are also supported by the

Integrated Metallurgical Complex of Nizhny Tagil (NTMK JSC), member of Evraz Group, has completed another stage of construction of coke-oven battery No. 5, PR-department of Evraz Group reports. Construction works at the heat-engineering unit are fully completed now: both the gas mains and all the equipment are installed, as well as all the lines. The battery is being run up now – the temperature within the unit will be gradually rising up to 800 degrees centigrade during the next 70 days. At the present stage of the battery construction, it is necessary to dry out and warm up refractory

On May 26, 2006, Ural Treasures Bank CJSC held the annual shareholder meeting. The shareholders approved of the bank’s annual report, agreed on the profit distribution and decided to pass a dividend for 2005, reports the PR Department of the bank.

According to the data provided by Entente Capital Investment Company, the proceeds of UralPotassium JSC have gone down by 1% in the first three months of 2006, their EBIT by 12%, the pre-tax profit by 16%, the net profit by 11%. The prime cost of the company’s sales increased by 4%; all of these figures appear to be predictable as UralPotassium faced a number of problems selling its produce at the beginning of the year. Their important and large clients had a lot of potassium in stock, which let them stop buying potassium and strive for a good bargain on the future supply prices. Yet

The Board of Directors of Elizavetinskiy Pilot Plant JSC decided to hold the general shareholder meeting on June 23, 2006. The points on the agenda include electing the company’s Board, approving of the annual report, the accounting report, and of the report of the inspection committee for 2005. The Board also suggested that the shareholders consider ceasing the production of girt and the accelerant due to economic reasons. According to the company’s report, this is caused by the lack of financial investments, great budget debts, low profitability of production, and, lately, no orders from

Board of Directors of Asha Metallurgical Works JSC suggested that the shareholders pass a dividend for 2005 when they gather at the annual general meeting on June 30, 2006. The other points on the agenda of the meeting include discussion of the company’s financial activity in 2005, electing the Board of Directors, the inspection committee, and the company’s Auditor.