Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service Ural Federal District’s division ruled on February 3, 2011 (decree 62-11-102/pz-i) that the emission of Sverdlovsk Region-based AVS Group’s ordinary registered paperless shares should be halted.

The international rating agency demoted the long-term credit rating of X5 Retail Group N.V. – the proprietor of a major retail grocery chain – and its daughter enterprises from BB- down to B+. the rating outlook is Stable. The rating of the company’s priority unsecured ruble bonds (issued by the daughter enterprise X5 Finance) was reduced from BB- to B+ and placed on CreditWatch with Negative outlook. What’s more, the ratings of X5 Finance and Agrotorg were called off altogether.

Moscow Region Arbitration court declared Technosila, the company managing Technosila electronic goods and household appliances chain store, bankrupt, Russian Agency for Legal & Court Information reports. The court made the company undergo bankruptcy proceedings for six months and appointed the company’s acting CEO Sergey Petrov the trustee in bankruptcy. The trustee announced in the course of the hearing that no evidence of the company going deliberately bankrupt was found. Technosila now has eleven creditors, whose claims total to 11.25bn RUR.

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, February 11, 2011. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) delivered 2,376,600 tons of rolled metal goods to the pipe industries last year, which was 48% better than a year earlier (1,603,000 tons). In fact, the share of metal goods meant for pipe manufacturing and delivered onto the home market came to 34% in 2010 compared with 33% in 2009. MMK’s main customers among pipe plants are Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant, Volzhsky Tube Rolling Plant, and Seversky Pipe Plant that are all members of Pipe Metallurgical Company; Vyksunsky Metallurgical Plant and

The loss sustained by ZAO AKB Absolut Bank in the year 2010 amounted (in accordance with the IAS) to ?5m, which was 22.4 times less than a year earlier, KBC Group report for the fourth quarter of 2010 says, Prime TASS reports. The bank’s NPL came to 16.8% in the last quarter of 2010 against 18.3% in the third quarter. At the beginning of the year, the NPL came to 14%. KBC Group is currently Absolut Bank’s principal shareholder with a 95% holding in the business. 5% of shares belongs to IFC. It was earlier announced that KBC Group intended to leave the bank’s capital.

The preliminary findings of the census were announced in the course of a round table discussion on Novosibirsk’s socioeconomic development in 2010. Novosibirsk city council reports a little over 1.47 million questionnaires were filled in during the census, which was 4.6% more than the current population figures state. This means Novosibirsk is still Russia’s third biggest city in terms of population. Yekaterinburg numbers 80,000 fewer people.

The detention process itself is a purely formal procedure, this is why no procedural claims can be made in this respect. That we disagree with the grounds for arrest is another matter. The reason given in the detention warrant is that Nikolai Maksimov is hiding from the law-enforcement authorities even though it’s obvious he never thought of hiding,’ businessman Nikolai Maksimov’s lawyer Leonid Matveev told UrBC. OAO Maxi Group’s minority shareholder Nikolai Maksimov was detained in Moscow the other day by the officers of Sverdlovsk Region’s Internal Affairs Department. ‘Nikolai Maksimov was

Moscow Arbitration Court rejected the claim E.S. Alamov Ural Mechano-optical Plant wanted to place against Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service. The plaintiff demanded that the FAS’s ruling be declared invalid. According to the files of the case, the plant applied for a tender that would give the best bidder a state contract for the delivery of equipment used to stock, process, store, and secure donated blood and its components. However, the plant’s application was rejected as the bidder failed to state the specific delivery date. As a result the tender was given to the only participant:

Regular monitoring checks of telecommunications operators that use IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi)-based wireless broad band connection radio devices revealed that Mobifon 2000 and Prestige Internet actually used unlicensed access points on the premises of Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region division of Roskomnadzor (the federal communications watchdog) reported today. The offenders were ordered to deal with the violations, with administrative offense orders issued.

The Urals-based manufacturer of energy-converting machines has been found guilty of an administrative offense in the field of securities violation; a fine of 500,000 RUR was imposed on the company. The decision was taken by Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service Ural Federal District division.

General Director of Uralenergotsvetmet Alexander Krekov intends to buy the shares he doesn’t own yet from the remaining stockholders. He started with a voluntary selling proposal for the co-owners of the company. The price offered per share comes to 36.77 RUR. Krekov currently owns a 99.5% shareholding in the enterprise. The remaining stockholders have seventy days to make up their minds.

Ural Airlines and RusLine signed a code sharing agreement that will involve a number of domestic flights. RusLine’s code 7R will now be placed for Ural Airlines’ flights from Moscow to Irkutsk, Krasnodar, Novokuznetsk, Saint Petersburg, and Chita, from Yekaterinburg to Saint Petersburg, Sochi, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, and Yakutsk, and from Novosibirsk to Moscow. The tickets at code sharing prices are already available for booking, with flights starting February 10, 2011. ‘The new agreement will allow for a great reduction of transfer flights prices, which means our passengers will be given

Mikhail Churkanov, notorious for his swindler schemes on the travel and aviation markets of Yekaterinburg, is now fishing in troubled waters again, RBC daily reports. Europa Air, an air carrier based in Yekaterinburg, has been offering cheap tickets for the most popular destinations in Russia and abroad. Rosaviation, however, never heard of such an airline and received no registration applications from the company. The airports the airline allegedly operates flights to are equally unfamiliar with Europa Air. One of the business founders is Mikhail Churkanov, who was convicted for fraud in

The 17th Court of Appeals supported the ruling of Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court that says UMMC Holding’s daughter enterprise Yekaterinburg-City must pay ?9.4m to the architects Valode&Pistre, Kommersant reports. The two companies have been struggling with their case in courts since September 2009. Yekaterinburg-City then demanded that Valode&Pistre pay them ?13.55m for failing to meet the design work deadline for Iset Tower. The architects, in their turn, announced all the work was presented in due time and placed a counter-claim with the court, demanding that Yekaterinburg-City

UrBC, Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region, February 9, 2011. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Mill 5000 has by now been fully engaged in terms of product orders. The mill produced 127,000 tons of hot-rolled goods in January 2011 against 112,000 tons last December, MMK reports. Now Mill 5000 projected capacity comes to 1.5m tons of rolled stock a year. ‘Our strategy is aimed at creating an up-to-date production site and launching new product types with high value-added that enjoy demand first and foremost in Russia. For one, MMK is now engaged in the implementation of the decade’s

A chemicals and pharmaceuticals plant based in Irbit, Sverdlovsk Region, has been found guilty of an administrative offense on the securities market. Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service in Ural Federal District ruled that the plant is to pay 500,000 RUR.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court ruled on January 17, 2011 that OOO Ural Elevator-Making Plant should undergo bankruptcy proceedings, thus closing case А60-1521/2010-С14, Kommersant reports under its Insolvency Announcements heading. Vladimir Rudko, a member of Delo Self-Regulatory Organization of Independent Trustees in Bankruptcy Non-Commercial Partnership, was appointed the company’s trustee in bankruptcy.

We had to close the store down for a while. The place will welcome the visitors again later on,’ EMA furniture store told UrBC without setting any exact reopening dates. The local service of Russia’s Ministry of Emergencies received a phone call about a broken reserve cold water supply pipeline (width 1,000 mm) at 4 Pirogov St in Yekaterinburg. The emergency crew locked the damaged section of the pipeline out. Apartment buildings and socially important structures keep getting their cold water supply as usual. Five vehicles and the eleven-people municipal emergency team are now working on the

Moscow division of Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service imposed a one-million-ruble fine on National Bank Trust for its advertisements that read, ‘DEPOSITS at enormous interest’ and ‘LOAN is not scary’, the service’s press officer reports. According to the service, the two outdoor advertisements in question violated Article 5 (part 7) and Article 28 (part 1 (paragraph 2 (sub-paragraph 2))and part 3) of the Federal Advertising Act. For one, the ads violated Article 5 (part 7) of the Federal Advertising Act in that some of the information that is essential to the customer and the terms that

Sverdlovsk Region’s public prosecution authorities for the environment detected an instance of polluting the River Chusovaya with toxic substances; the culprit is Russian Chrome 1915. ‘The company has been using obsolete filtering equipment that cannot cope with the amount of waste discharge, which means it’s doing harm to the environment,’ the prosecution authorities say. The investigation revealed that the company, which happens to be a water consumer, has been dumping inadequately filtered waste water from its neutralization station into the River Pakhotka. The waste water’s chrome content