Orkla Brands decided that two Russian chocolate makers should merge into a single company to be named Orkla Brands Russia. Krupskaya and SladCo will be united under a single management team. The integration procedures have already begun, so the new organization is to come into being of February 25, 2011. The new company’s turnover is supposed to come to about 6.8bn RUR, total workforce is to come to 3,350 people. Orkla Brands Russia’s HQ will be based in Saint Petersburg.

Yekaterinburg commercial estate market’s major problem at the moment is that a balance needs to be struck between the realty introduced and the demand backed by the adequate paying capacity. Despite the bankers’ claims to the contrary, the lending practice has not fully recovered yet. For one, no loans are offered for project financing. The buildings that do get finished in Yekaterinburg right now are the ones that were projected and planned long ago. Virtually no new projects are being launched,’ plenipotentiary representative of the Management Companies & Developers Guild in

Uralsvyazinform, a telecommunications provider and a member of Svyazinvest Holding, handed its debtors (nearly 100,000 subscribers) to the international debt-collecting agency Lindorff. The agency is already cooperating with Rostelecom that is to unite all the smaller members of Svyazinvest in one month’s time,’ ComNews.ru reports. Uralsvyazinform and Lindorff signed their contract in December 2010. The list of debtors was given in to the agency in a few stages, in January and early February. ‘This is going to be a long-term cooperation, which means the operator will be transferring the

Yekaterinburg’s public prosecution authorities checked whether the preparatory jobs for the construction of a building in Zoologicheskaya St-Repin St-Volgogradskaya St-Serafima Deryabina St in Yekaterinburg are actually legal. The authorities detected some violations of the tree-felling regulations in the allotment in question. Yekaterinburg city council allowed OOO Torgovy Center to fell 1,161 trees, but this permission had legal flaws in it as it did not agree with the Green Area Regulations: no reasons were given for the need to fell the trees, no special expert examination took place. Nor

Eight business centers with the total area of 285,600 sq m are to be commissioned in Yekaterinburg this year, including four Class A centers (total area 221,600 sq m) and four Class B centers (total area 64,000 sq m). The news was announced at a meeting headed by Vice Mayor of Yekaterinburg for Consumer Market Viktor Konteev. Last year, five new buildings with the total area of 93,000 sq m were to have been commissioned; in reality, however, only one building was actually launched, that is, Voznesensky Business Center (Class A, total area 23,200 sq m) at 18 Pervomayskaya St. Among the

Sergey Zyryanov, Councilor to Governor of Sverdlovsk Region, was recently appointed the General Director of Uralsevergaz. The decision to this extent was made at the company’s extraordinary general meeting in Yekaterinburg on February 22, 2011. Former GD Vladimir Kuzyushin was promoted to Vice President of ITERA Group.

Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Board of Directors Viktor Rashnikov won the international prize Person of the Year 2010. The prize was founded by RBC Group in 2001. It is primarily aimed at bringing into the limelight the people who made the most significant impact on Russia’s development and promoting work for the good of the country. Each prize winner is selected by a board of experts comprising Russian politicians, economists, heads of large enterprises and cultural elite representatives. Viktor Rashnkov was nominated Person of the Year 2010 in the Businessman of the

The share of metal goods delivered by Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) onto domestic market went up to 69% of the total shipments volume last year. ‘For reasons of geographical proximity and good growth potential, we see the home market as our priority and a strategically important one,’ says MMK BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov. The company kept on building up on its metal goods sales in Russia for the last few years. While MMK only sold 36% of its produce domestically in 1999 and shipped 64% abroad, already in 2005 its home sales exceeded the export shipments for the first time. In

S7 Group airlines Siberia and Globus rendered their services to 412,260 passengers in January 2011, which was actually 1.9% less than a year earlier, S7 press service reports. The decrease in the number of passenger has to do with the fact that that the Group stopped using four transcontinental Airbus A310 planes fit for 255 people; this was part of the company’s fleet upgrades program. S7 Airlines is currently using thirty-nine aircraft whose average age comes to eight years. The company’s passenger turnover amounted to 915,175,000 passenger-kilometers, its passenger load factor came to 68%,

OAO Rosbank reports some forged bank guarantees are used in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk by unidentified swindlers. ‘It is reported that increasingly more forged bank guarantees are used to deceive people. The trick works like this: swindlers offer the Russian and foreign businesses representatives fictitious bank guarantees for a certain commission off the total amount. The papers involve figures of up to ?250m’ the bank warns. For one, the forgers are said to be operating in such Russian cities as Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Perm, Ulyanovsk, Yekaterinburg, and Yaroslavl

Microsoft Corporation reports the entire product range will grow a bit more expensive starting March 1, 2011. The company decided to use Russian roubles for all the transactions in the Russian Federation. The conversion of prices into the national currency with a fixed exchange rate will mean all products will go up in price 12%. The rise will involve such box offers as FPP and most corporate licensing products like Open, Open Value, Open Value Subscription, Enterprise Agreement, and Enterprise Agreement Subscription The prospective price-rise date has been set for March 1, 2011.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court turned down the request of Ural Federal District’s division of the Federal Strong Drinks Market Surveillance Service (Rosalcoholuregulirovaniye) to annul the license of Yekaterinburg wine and champagne producer. The division required that the company’s license be annulled after an inspection of the business. The agency then halted the company’s activity. In fact, similar restrictive measures were taken by Rosalcoholuregulirovaniye in respect of Sredneuralksy wine plant, but the claim was dismissed by the court in this case as well.

The project of Ural Airlines’ new office building won in Golden Capital, the country-wide architects and designers contest. Yekaterinburg-based In.Form, already known for its public buildings projects, won the gold prize with its project for Ural Airlines in the Public Interiors category. The All-Russian festival was attended by 108 companies from nine Russian cities: Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, and others. The event coordinators reports projects of greatest quality were featured there, the best ones throughout the festival’s fifteen years of existence. Virtually all the projects

The tour operators won’t find an increase in the amount of financial guarantees required by the state a big blow on their finances. However, some smaller tour operators will have to become simple travel agents,’ the Director of Mouzenidis Тravel Yekaterinburg representation Olga Ganiyeva told UrBC. The prospective changes in the tourist legislation will make it obligatory for tour operators whose annual turnover falls short of 500m RUR to ensure financial guarantees of 100m; companies whose turnover comes to more than 500m RUR a year and over 1bn RUR a year will have to provide 200m RUR and

I think the new development on the increased financial guarantees for tour operators is only half the battle. Sadly, tourism is a kind of business where there are a lot of illegitimate tour operators. No one can forbid a travel agent to book a ticket and a hotel room on their own. There are no regulations on this market,’ Director of Natalie Tours Yekaterinburg representation Oleg Khiger told UrBC. Now the prospective changes in the tourist legislation will make it obligatory for tour operators whose annual turnover falls short of 500m RUR to ensure financial guarantees of 100m; companies

New Tajikistan’s Consul-General in Yekaterinburg Parviz Asoyev assumed office recently. Parviz Asoyev used to be deputy head of Tajikistan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry’s Consulate Department prior to his new appointment. Mr. Asoyev’s predecessor Farrukh Sharipov was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Tajikistan to Turkey.

I don’t think any financial guarantees can save a tour operator on the brink of bankruptcy. For one, these guarantees did not help much in the case of Capital Tour and its customers. As a result, people were forced to pay for the hotel rooms themselves, they found themselves hostages of the problem. The thing is, Capital Tour still owes money to hotels and airlines. This is why I really do not see how a financial guarantee can save either the tour operator or the client,’ Director of OOO Inna Tour Inna Averyanova told UrBC. Meanwhile, the prospective changes in the tourist legislation will

The Swedish furniture maker IKEA is calling off 6,000 children’s beds due to a production fault. According to the company’s press service, the beds in question, Sniglar, made at IKEA’s Rumania-based factories, are now being called off in Canada. The problem is that the fastening bolts for the beds turned out to be too short; as a result, the beds can collapse and therefore hurt the children. The beds were sold between October 2005 and June 2010, RBC reports. IKEA pointed out that no problems have been recorded up to now. However, the company strongly recommends that all Sniglar beds should be

Raiffeisenbank and RENOVA StroyGroup launched a new mortgage scheme recently that allows one to buy an apartment in Yekaterinburg’s newest Academic district. Customer willing to buy a place there can choose among three mortgage programs, all of which offer such advantageous terms as a 15% down payment, twenty-five years to pay the rest off, no moratorium on or commissions for the early repayment, no need to look for any guarantors or collateral. The bank promises to process the applications within three to five working days. What is more, through a special offer run by Raiffeisenbank between

Flight 947 from Hudzhand by Tajik Air was canceled by the airline and did not arrive at Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport recently. The flight was to have arrived at Koltsovo at 2:30 PM but was called off. No reason is stated on the airport’s interactive announcement board. This means a return flight 4918 from Yekaterinburg to Hudzhand (departure time 4:30 PM) was called off as well.