The Board of Directors of Pnevmostroymachina suggested that the company’s shareholders decide to pass the dividend for 2008 at the upcoming annual general meeting. The decision to this extent was taken unanimously.

Standard & Poor’s has recently demoted Concern Kalina’s national scale rating from ruА+ to ruВВВ+. ‘The decrease is reflexive of our concerns over the aggressive way in which the company’s liquidity is managed, the rise in debts, the weakening market opportunities, and the interest and currency risks the business is facing at the moment,’ says Standard & Poor’s analyst Anton Geise. The company’s liquidity troubles have to do with the prevalence of short-term debts in the company’s overall debt structure on the one hand and lack of liquidity reserves on the other. The creditor bank, in

The region’s public prosecution authorities for transport found out that, despite the Russian Federation Air Code regulations, Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg did not employ any law-enforcement officers for passenger security checks in the VIP and business zones. What is more, the airport is believed to have violated the federal ant-terrorist bill requirements. The prosecutors’ investigation therefore resulted in elimination orders placed with the General Directors of Chelyabinsk Airport and Koltsovo Airport. The people responsible for the violations will have to face disciplinary liability.

Starting May 13, 2009, Malev Airlines will no longer be operating its Yekaterinburg-Budapest flight due to redistribution of airplanes. The carrier reports the management has decided to offer more flights within Europe instead. In fact, the flight was canceled a bit earlier, but the airline will keep operating it between April 29, 2009 and May 13, 2009 to meet its customer obligations. The company’s office in Yekaterinburg is to close down on May 13, 2009.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin is to take part in the Plenipotentiary Representative of Russian Federation President in Ural Federal District Nikolai Vinnichenko’s council meeting, the spokesperson for the Governor says. The meeting in Yekaterinburg is to be attended by the Russian Federation Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov, First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Mikhail Sukhodolskiy, and head of Ural Federal District’s regions. The officials will discuss the way President Dmitriy Medvedev’s commissions are being implemented. These commissions are related to the

‘SUBRstroy, the company that is expected to receive a certain amount of investment was switched to a four-day working week on January 19, 2009. I have spoken to the company’s head recently and have been told that this four-day mode is to last for six months. However, even when the workers go back to the five-day week, their pay is not going to rise,’ says the leader of UC RUSAL’s Severouralsk Bauxite Mine (SUBR) independent trade union Valeriy Zolotarev says. ‘SUBR itself has been operating on a five-day basis, but the workers find themselves unable to meet the deadlines because of the lack

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to handle the preliminary hearing of the claim laid by Regional Network Company (part of IES Holding) against Urals’ Interregional Distribution Network Company (part of MRSK Holding); the case has been filed under number А60-8628/2009-С3. According to the papers placed with the court, the former insists on the latter paying over 67.728 million RUR to the plaintiff.

The net profit of Uralvagonzavod-Finance went down by 164,000 RUR, or 93.71% in the first quarter of 2009, that is, from 175,000 RUR in October-December 2008 to 11,000 RUR in January-March 2009. The company reports this drop in net profits has to do with increased outgoings.

URSA Bank came up with more new offers on promissory notes-based lending for business customers. ‘Any solvent SME that can provide a loan guarantee and has contractors willing to accept the notes can now use the bank’s offer,’ URSA Bank’s PR Department reports. ‘Such loans look rather appealing to both the bank and the borrower, as they make it possible for the latter to use the promissory notes to pay for goods and services. This means the amount of a business’s floating assets rises and the settlement of financial matters with the contractors becomes easier. What is more, these loan types

The BOD of LSR Group (LSE: LSRG, MICEX, RTS: LSRG) confirmed the company’s consolidated financial report (drawn up in accordance with the IAS) for 2008, the spokesperson for the company reports. Following the investment assets reassessment, the Group’s net loss amounted to 8.007 RUR last year, with profits, however, going up by 39% and EBITDA by 67%. ‘The crisis did affect LSR Group’s financial performance in 2008, since the demand dropped in the second half of the year and our investment assets grew devaluated. At the same time, even though these losses do reduce our revenues, they do not

The international rating agency has recently demoted UralTransBank’s Rating Outlook from Stable to Negative. Fitch Ratings reports this outlook is reflective of the bank’s weakened asset quality and relatively low capacity to absorb losses (mainly due to the little share of basic stock).

Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court is to hear the claim laid by Evgeniy Salnikov and Vladimir Fraifeld against Bank24.ru and Energotechnologii-XXI vek. The plaintiffs demand that the transaction signed by the two companies be declared invalid. The agreement in question (No. 1/21.11.2008) involves the sale and purchase of some securities on November 21, 2008. In case the deal is deemed invalid, Bank24.ru is to pay Energotechnologii-XXI vek 16,260,191.68 RUR and the latter is to return 15,712 corporate bonds to the bank; each bond has a face value of 1,000 RUR (file number 4-01-55217-Е).

Severnaya Kazna Insurance Company’s profits reached 151.876 million RUR in the first quarter of 2009, including 101.006 million RUR coming from voluntary insurance types and 50.869 million RUR coming from the obligatory car insurance. The insurance payments amounted to 95.507 million RUR, including 63.118 million RUR worth of payments on voluntary insurance cases and 32.389 million RUR on the obligatory car insurance cases, the company reports. The business’s losses came to 62.89% in the first quarter of the year: the figures for the obligatory car insurance and for voluntary insurance came

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin confirmed the interdepartmental coordination scheme designed for fighting fires in the region’s forests. According to the spokesperson for the Governor, the scheme is expected to enhance the efficiency of fighting forest fires. The Main Forestry Administration is now responsible for the forest fund, national parks and forest reserves are to monitor their areas, the Ministry for Agriculture is to be in control of the farm fields, and South Ural Railways and the Ministry of Construction keep track of the railroads and highways, respectively. The

URSA Bank made 346.12 million RUR worth of payments on the second coupon of its eighth bond issue (file number 40800323В) on April 16, 2009. The coupon interest rate was determined at 11.19% a year, with 55.8 RUR paid per each bond. The bank reports they went through with their eighth bond issue worth 6.203 billion RUR at MICEX on April 17, 2008. The bonds are to be in circulation for seven years.

About 20% of Russia’s largest banks experienced a decrease in their capital stock in 2008, Kommersant referred to the National Rating Agency as reporting. The agency says Bank VTB, Alfa-Bank, and Perviy Cheshsko-Rossiyskiy Bank have gone through the greatest drops, that is, by 28%, 28.5%, and 21.1%, respectively. For some of the banks, the trouble has to do with losses. Severo-Vostochniy Alliance Joint-Stock Commercial Bank, for instance, lost 2.041 billion RUR in the course of securities portfolio reassessment, so its basic stock went down by 36.8% last year. The same is true of Rossiyskiy

Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation is planning to make some of its workers redundant in the near future. 210, 149, and 800 people will have to leave in May, June, and July 2009, respectively, the corporation’s Personnel Director Natalya Babilurova announced at the regional enterprise support committee’s meeting.

Governor of Sverdlovsk Region Eduard Rossel spoke with Public Works and Housing Minister of Turkey Faruk Nafız Özak about the possibility of setting up Turkey’s diplomatic representation in Yekaterinburg. The proposal was made in the course of the Governor’s meeting with a delegation of Turkish officials headed by the Minister. Among the delegates were the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Turkey to Russia Halil Akyndzhi, Turkey’s leading bank representatives, and top executives of large construction enterprises. ‘We cooperate in many important fields; we have a

The share of Alfa-Bank’s corporate overdue debt reached 9.83% on April 1, 2009 compared with only 1.14% on October 1, 2008 and 6.04% on January 1, 2009, Banki.ru refers to Alfa-Bank’s Deputy Chairman Vladimir Tatarchuk as saying. According to Tatarchuk, the entire portfolio’s debt share amounts to 10%, while the bad debt makes up 20% of the total lending portfolio volume. ‘Unless some emergency occurs, we’ll manage to keep our overdue and bad debt shares the same by the end of the year,’ says the executive as quoted by Banki.ru.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin asked his Deputy for Social Issues Evgeniy Redin to write up a project on paying incidental 500-ruble allowances on Victory Day to the Great Patriotic War veterans, the Leningrad blockade survivors, and death camp prisoners who were under age at the time, 95,000 people altogether. This is a limited list for this difficult year: before the crisis, the allowances used to be paid to all of the region’s retirees. What is more, the Governor asked the Minister for Construction, Infrastructure, and Roads Valeriy Shopov to arrange the new public transport