Head of Yekaterinburg City Council Alexander Yakob held a meeting of the city strategic development committee in order to look into an updated version of a strategic project on Yekaterinburg hotels. The project began in 2005, and over fifty new hotels with a total of over 3,000 rooms have been built since then, with fifteen hotels reconstructed as well. At the moment, there are ninety-five hotels in Yekaterinburg ready to host 7,732 people altogether. Five foreign hoteliers run their business here, namely, Hyatt, Park Inn, Ramada, Angelo, and Novotel. Twenty-five more hotels will have been

Transaero Airlines’ net loss rose by 46% in the first quarter of 2011 against the first quarter of 2010; the figures were calculated in accordance with the Russian Accounting Standards. The net loss thus came down to 350.67m RUR, the company reports. At the same time, the company made 175.35m RUR worth of net profit in the fourth quarter of 2010. The airline explains the drop in profits has to do with seasonal variations as well as with some extraordinary circumstances on the Russian air carrier market.

The Ural Federal District division of the Federal Financial Market Service issued Order 62-11-512/pz-I on May 10, 2011 that halts the issue of Sverdlovsk Region-based AKADO-Yekaterinburg ordinary registered paperless shares.

The net profit of the cement making company Sukholozhskcement dropped by 134.96m RUR, or 54% in the first quarter of 2011, that is, from 248.81m RUR in the fourth quarter down to 113.85m RUR in the first quarter of 2011. According to the company, this loss had to do with a 9% drop in cement sales revenues in the first quarter of 2011 compared with the fourth quarter of 2010. The decrease in revenues, in its turn, was brought about by the changing shipment volumes. What is more, the prime cost of the cement sale went up by 19%. The company’s other profits declined by 65%, mainly due to the

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court made a local sole trader A. M. Frolova face administrative liability for selling counterfeited clothes. The legal action started when the owners of Burberry trademark applied to Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs, asking to look into the illegal use of Burberry trademark by a clothes shop in Hermes Plaza mall in Yekaterinburg. The inspection that the police officers conducted resulted in confiscation of some clothing items, including those with Burberry labels. The examination of the confiscated produce proved that the clothes were fake and

Starting May 10, 2011, the annual interest rates VUZ-Bank offers on its ruble and euro deposits (Trustful, Optimal, SuperDeposit, and Retirement) go up 0.5%. All these deposit types can be topped up throughout the entire first half of the deposit period, with a fixed interest rate.

Russia’s Ministry for Industry & Trade drew up a presidential decree on the transfer of seven Russian machine-building enterprises’ shares from the federal authorities to Uralvagonzavod, Kommersant reports. The largest asset in question is a 42.5% shareholding in the Tver-based railway carriage-making plant TVZ. The Ministry feels, the newspaper’s sources familiar with the notes accompanying the decree are referred to as saying, that the logic behind transferring the companies’ stock to Uralvagonzavod is that Russian Railways and its daughter enterprises happen to be the key customers of

Fitch Ratings promoted Bank Russkiy Standard’s Issuer Default Rating outlook from Stable to Positive and confirmed the rating at B+. We reconsidered the rating outlook because we expect the bank to start growing again after three years of run-down lending; this is likely to improve the company’s performance indicators because of greater profit generation and a larger scale of doing business. What is more, we feel very positive about the bank becoming less dependent from the finances it gets on the capital market and about the bank proving capable of paying off its $4bn market funds during the

The revenues of VIZ-Stal dropped by 14% in the first quarter of 2011 compared with the first quarter of 2010 because of the dropping transformer steel sales, as the company’s export deliveries have not been accounted for yet. Another reason for the revenues to go down was the decrease in the average selling price, partially due to the improved ruble exchange rate, Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) reports. The price of the semi-finished rolled stock NLMK delivers, combined with the factors above, determined the seasonal drop in profitability in terms of the gross profit from 26% down

Investbank admitted that there could have been some illegal meddling with its safety vaults recently. On May 4, 2011, the police reported that 13m RUR were allegedly stolen from one of the Moscow offices safety vaults during the early May recess. AKB Investbank admits that it did receive an application from its customers who rent a safety vault at the bank’s Moskovsky subsidiary at 32/2 Nakhimovsky Ave. in Moscow; the application concerns the fact that some illegal action was taken by some unidentified people against the customers’ property,’ RIA Novosti quotes the subsidiary’s director

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that the financial recovery of Bank24.ru is now complete. Bank24.ru was confronted with a drastic cash outflow late in 2008 and was unable to sort out its liquidity problems on its own. The bank had to undergo financial recovery with Probusinessbank of Life Group as its new proprietor and the Deposit Insurance Agency as the cooperator in the process of helping this Yekaterinburg-based bank out of trouble.

Transaero, one of Russia’s leading air carriers, will have to raise the price of the tickets it offers to tour operators by an average of 8%, the airline’s press service reports. This has to be done because the jet fuel prices will be raised on June 1, 2011. When fuel prices change we act accordingly and either decrease or increase the price of the tickets, but the tour operators normally show a lot of understanding in this respect,’ the airline reports, adding that the increase in the ticket price only has to do with the growing jet fuel prices. Transaero also explained that the price

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service did not approve of Yekaterinburg Municipal Bank’s internal rules so as to counteract money laundering and financing of terrorist activity.

SKB-Bank keeps on expanding its subsidiary network throughout Russia. The company’s new office in Krasnodar started operating today. The outlet was named Festivalny after the part of the city it is located in. The new office can be found at 40 Atarbekov St., Prikubansky District. The outlet welcomes private customers from 9 AM to 7 PM on weekdays and from 10 AM to 4 PM on Saturdays, with no lunch break. Businesses and entrepreneurs can call in between 9 AM and 4 PM on weekdays. The new outlet is now SKB-Bank’s third representation in Krasnodar Territory and the second one in Krasnodar proper.

India has recently introduced some new taxes that are expected to make the price of trips to the country go up, the Association of Russian Tour Operators reports. The Indian Government adopted a new budget legislation for the years 2011-2012 that imposes new taxes on booking hotel rooms as well as on the hotel food and drink. Now one will have to pay 5.15% off the price of the accommodation and 3.09% off the price of catering when booking a hotel in India. The Indian tour operators are warning their Russian partners that all the reservations, even those made before the new laws come

MEDIMA Co has been declared a dishonest supplier; the decision was taken by Sverdlovsk Region of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service. The reason for denouncing the company in such way was that MEDIMA backed out of signing a contract with Kamensk-Uralsky’s central district hospital for the delivery of a 209,000-ruble medical apparatus, even though the company had won the tender.

The former president of Bank of Moscow Andrei Borodin is now on the ‘wanted’ list, the Russian Agency for Legal and Court Information’s correspondent reports from Moscow’s Tverskoy Court. The judge who announced the petition to that extent placed with the court said that Andrei Borodin was on the international ‘wanted’ list, while the inquiry official reported in court that the businessman was on the federal ‘wanted’ list. The court hearing was put off for a few months upon the request of Borodin’s lawyer who asked for some time to look into the petition.

Koltsovo International Airport based in Yekaterinburg is now Russia’s first provincial airport to be allowed to host RRJ-95 planes and its modifications. The permission was granted by the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviation), with the corresponding order signed recently. According to the airport’s press officer, the permission to service the new aircraft type opens up considerably more opportunities for the airport’s partner airlines.

TransCreditBank’s Board of Directors met recently to issue a recommendation to the bank’s shareholders: the directors suggest that the shareholders accept Bank VTB’s obligatory offer regarding the acquisition of TransCreditBank’s securities, the bank’s official release states. The securities in question are 1,299,222,305 shares of TransCreditBank worth 21 RUR apiece that Bank VTB wants to buy.

Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service approved of Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company’s petition for setting up a company called Ostenford Holdings Limited in Cyprus, Kommersant refers to its source in the company as saying. According to the source, who is apparently well aware of the situation, some of the company’s assets have allegedly been offshored to Cyprus – the source does not know what assets these are and what the purpose of the offshoring transaction was. The Managing Partner of Korelsky & Partners says this is usually done for tax reduction reasons. UMMC refused to provide