The telecommunications provider’s Board of Directors decided to set the annual interest rate for the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth coupons of the company’s 06 bond issue at 10.5%. Uralsvyazinform went through with this two-billion-ruble bond issue on November 24, 2005. The interest rate for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth coupons was determined at 8.2% a year, that for the seventh and eighth coupons was set at 13% a year. This means that the interest rate for coupons 9-12 is going to be a little lower. As a matter of fact, the company successfully went through with a

Ural Airlines will start operating its new scheduled Yekaterinburg-Namangan flight on November 18, 2009. The new flight will be operated every Wednesday using an A 320 airplane. As for flight U6-2963 Yekaterinburg-Namangan (Uzbekistan), departure and arrival time is 1:15 PM and 4:05 PM, respectively. The departure and arrival time for the return flight (U6 -2964) is 5:35 PM and 8:35 PM, respectively. The flight timetable was compiled so as to take into account the passengers possibly changing planes on the way. The new flight provides for a variety of convenient connecting flights through

The international rating agency affirmed Alfa-Bank’s long-term Issuer Default Rating at BB-, while the Rating Outlook was promoted from Negative to Stable. Fitch reports the improvement in the rating outlook has to do with the recent general improvements in the country’s banking sector and with Alfa-Bank’s increased loss absorption capacity (partially caused by some fresh capital inflow). At the same time, the rating agency claims Alfa-Bank’s bad debt (that is, debts that are more than ninety days overdue) rose up to 16.9% in the third quarter of 2009. On January 1, 2009, the figure only came

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court will resume hearing of the claim laid by Global Gaming Expo against Bank24.ru on November 9, 2009. GGE insists on being paid 199.765 million RUR that the bank has allegedly obtained through unjust enrichment. Alfa-Bank is also involved in the case as a third party with no claims of its own. GGE was founded by Bank24.ru’s former BOD member Alexei Kalinichenko. The former bank executive’s business activity involved trading on Forex foreign exchange market. Capital was attracted through private investors, who had been promised the annual yield of 30% to 200%.

‘The socioeconomic stability of Severouralsk depends on many external factors, including the changes in the industrial sector, as the city’s primary employers are our ore mining and woodworking enterprises,’ the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the State Employment Service said to UrBC reporter. The current recession has made many local businesses, like SUBR-Stroy, Stroymasterural, and Severouralsk concrete goods plant, for instance, produce less and work shorter hours. The Service reports these three enterprises are faced with the threat of large-scale redundancies. The

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin sent a letter of congratulations to Chelindbank’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board Mikhail Bratiskhin, who celebrated his 85th birthday recently. ‘Thanks to your efforts, Chelyabinsk Region keeps developing and lives increasingly better; you’ve also been helping the region to cope with difficulties. Your professional skills and talent, as well as your outstanding compassion and patriotism, result in great achievements that mean a lot to both the people and the country,’ the letter says. Sumin noted the bank executive had been working within the

Mill 450 was recently repaired at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). According to the company’s PR Department, the repairs involved replacement of the mill furnace lining and the mechanical bits of machinery. Also, the foundation of the mill’s fourth section was replaced with the new one and new rollers were installed at the central fridge roller conveyor. Mekhanoremontniy Komplex, Elektroremont, and Magnitogorsk maintenance center were the general contractor for the project responsible for mechanical repairs, electric equipment repairs, and hydraulic system repairs, respectively. As

Interfax-Center for Economic Analysis (Interfax-CEA) came up with a ranking of Russia’s best developing banks in the nine months of 2009. According to this ranking, MDM Bank proved one of the country’s fastest-growing credit organizations, the bank’s press officer reports. MDM Bank’s assets have increased by 81% since the beginning of the year; this has been the greatest figure among Russia’s Top 20 banks since January 2009. At the same time, the increase in the total assets of Russia’s 100 largest banks only amounted to .1% in the three quarters of 2009. MDM Bank was the first on the list of

The General Director of UralNITI Anatoly Sukhov was forced to accept an early resignation after his labor contract had been cancelled in the course of an extraordinary general meeting. Alexei Fefelov is going to become the enterprise’s new GD. As a matter of fact, Sukhov ran for General Director as well but failed to win enough votes.

‘Our sales of Opel cars are as smooth as ever, even though General Motors did decide not to sell its daughter enterprise after all. In fact, GM has been struggling with some problems of its own; one way or another, the company has got only one distributor delivering its cars to Russia. This distributor will certainly keep buying General Motors’ produce, so any customer can always place an order for the model he or she likes. All this talk of the government planning to impose sanctions on GM is just rubbish. Opel has been present on the Russian market since the nineties; it is a very strong

The net profit of AK BARS Bank went down by 297.25 million RUR, or 87.1%, that is, from 341.284 million RUR in the second quarter of 2009 down to 44.032 million RUR in the third quarter. The company says the decrease in net profit was brought about by the dropping loan income and the need to build up on the possible loan reserves. What is more, the net profit declined because the bank had to re-evaluate its foreign currency funds.

Kirill Shubin resigned from the position of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo Airport’s General Director before any decision to this extent has been taken by the company’s Board of Directors. It was reported on Friday that Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel appointed Mr. Shubin Director of the region’s State Order Department. Kirill Shubin was supposed to have resigned on December 4, 2009 in the course of the airport shareholders’ extraordinary general meeting; apparently, he chose not to wait for the date. Prior to his resignation, Kirill Shubin had been running the company since May

Head of Russian Federation Government Vladimir Putin signed a decree that officially pronounces Chelyabinsk Federal Cardiovascular Surgery Clinic a legal entity, Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin announced at a meeting with his deputies and the regional ministers. Sumin feels giving a legal status to the clinic is a very important thing that will help to handle issues like delivery and installation of medical equipment. The Governor had sent a letter to Vladimir Putin a few days earlier, asking for help in financing the equipment purchases. Chelyabinsk Region, on its part, has already

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin asked his officials to develop a set of additional measures that could help fight the flu generated by A/H1N1/ virus. Deputy Governor Evgeniy Redin reported at a recent meeting that two more people had died of this flu type over the weekend. A young man and a pregnant woman died of some viral pneumonia in Chelyabinsk and Nyazepetrovskiy district, respectively. All in all, four regional dwellers have been killed by the virus so far. Redin said this was not more than the seasonal flu mortality rate. Nevertheless, nine regional municipalities and four

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports their new authorized representatives were appointed in fifty Russian banks; the representatives will act in accordance with Article 76 of the Federal Act on the Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia). Among these banks are two Yekaterinburg-based organizations, namely, Bank Severnaya Kazna and Bank24.ru

Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko organized a meeting dedicated to the development prospects of Uralvagonzavod, one of Russia’s leading vehicle giants. ‘The Russian Federation Government took a whole set of recession-fighting measures targeted at bringing more stability to the enterprise; nevertheless, the situation is still difficult. The company’s main problem is their shrinking order portfolio, since their key customers, Russian Railways and First Freight Company, can’t afford to buy as much as they used to.

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court refused to declare the ruling of the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s Sverdlovsk Region division invalid, the spokesperson for the FAS reports. The FAS’s regional division stated on August 11, 2009 that the advertisement of a newly built living quarter in Yekaterinburg was improper because of the slang words used. The use of slang is actually forbidden by Article 5 (part 6) of the Federal Advertising Act. The division placed an enquiry with A.M. Gorkiy Ural State University’s Chair of Ethics, Aesthetics, and Theory & History of Culture in order to get an

Moscow Arbitration Court rejected the claim initiated by Maxi Group’s minority shareholder Nikolai Maksimov. The plaintiff insisted that the summer shares-for-loans auction where the shareholdings of Maxi Group’s daughter enterprises were sold should be declared invalid, Maxi Group’s press officer reports. The shares of Nizhneserginskiy metal goods plant, Uralvtorchermet, and Ural Precision Alloys Plant were acquired by Novolipetsk Iron & Steel Works (NLMK) on June 25, 2009. Maxi Group then explained the sale was necessary to make the company’s asset management more efficient. Nikolai

UralTransBank announced its official website had been moved to a new company’s server on November 3, 2009, which was why some users might experience short-term difficulties accessing the site. This could be the case with users whose providers’ DNS servers don’t get upgraded every twenty-four hours, the bank’s official website says.