Bank Severnaya Kazna’s (now the asset of Alfa-Bank) six outlets are closing down in Sverdlovsk Region. These are the offices located at 84 Metallurgov St., 4 Scherbakov St., 149 Vosmoye Marta St., and 31 Lunacharskiy St. in Yekaterinburg and offices situated at 83a Kamenskaya St. in Kamensk-Uralskiy and 52g Trubnikov St. in Pervouralsk. All of these will stop operating between January 23, 2009 and February 6, 2009. The announcement to this extent was placed on the bank’s official website.

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) drew up a plan for scientific and technical information promotion in 2008. The enterprise’s PR Department reports this is expected to help the company seek, investigate, and launch the newest technologies and devices more effectively. A new STI board was also elected, chaired by MMK’s chief engineer Sergey Ushakov. Then, executives responsible for information research and special reviewers were appointed in every production department. In addition, the board thought through their basic agenda, covering top-priority issues and this year’s business

Bank Vyatich’s net profit went down by 4.023 million RUR, or 80% in the last quarter of 2008. The bank’s net profit only reached 1.029 million RUR in October-December 2008 compared with 5.052 million RUR in July-September 2008. The bank reports the drop in their net profits was brought about by the increased expenses related to purchase and sale of foreign currency as well as greater investment in possible loss reserves. These reserves, in their turn, had to be built up upon because of the bank’s growing lending portfolio and advance payments on profits tax.

Fitch Ratings has recently demoted the Russian LSR Group’s Issuer Default Rating in foreign currency as well as its priority rating from B+ to B. Then, both of these ratings are now on the Rating Watch and marked as Negative. The Group’s rating indicating the possible asset recovery on the company’s priority debt was affirmed at RR4. LSR Ural Management Company comprises SMU Nova-Stroy, Betfor (the concrete goods manufacturer), Nova-Stroy, PKU Nova-StroyProekt, and Uralscheben. ‘The rating decrease shows that we expect LSR Group’s financial development indicators to be badly affected by the

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Federal Antimonopoly Service keeps looking into the case involving Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg, TNK BP Holding, and UNK. The claim against the companies was laid in October 2008 and involved alleged jet fuel price collusion. The last court hearing resulted in the decision to postpone the processing of the case because of the need to get some data from Ural Federal District’s division of Rostechnadzor (the state environmental, technological, and nuclear safety watchdog). What the court needed to know was whether it was possible to mix up several kinds of

Bank Severnaya Kazna’s net loss (now the asset of Alfa-Bank) was officially reported to have exceeded 1.52 billion RUR in the fourth quarter of 2008. A quarter earlier, the loss figure came to 60.507 million RUR. This means the net loss increase amounted to 1,464,444,000 RUR, or 2,240.29%. The bank claims the reason for net loss growth is their selling their securities portfolio and creating debt reserves.

According to RBC.Rating, Bank Monetniy Dom (formerly known as Mechel-Bank) was one of Russia’s Top 500 largest banks on October 1, 2008. The bank scored the 199th position in the rating, the agency reports. RBC.Rating says Bank Monetniy Dom’s net asset volume came to 7.839 billion RUR in January-September 2008, which was 53.07% better than a year earlier and therefore secured the bank an impressive promotion in the rating by as many as thirty-two positions up.

Gubernskiy Bank has recently updated the terms of its Gubernskiy Express deposit. ‘The bank’s most popular deposit type is now even more profitable for customers. The interest rate for U.S. dollar and euro deposits is now determined at 12% a year,’ Gubernskiy’s press officer reports. Gubernskiy Bank raised the interest rate on the ruble deposits as well: the rate offered on Gubernskiy Express deposit type and on Retirement Savings one now comes to up to 16.1% a year. ‘A lot of people prefer to keep their savings in foreign currency at the moment, and we respect their choice. To make sure

SKB-Bank’s customers had over 600,000 money orders handled for them by the bank in 2008. ‘This is a record-setting figure, with more than 1,500 money order transactions performed in the bank’s offices daily,’ the spokesperson for SKB-Bank reports. These data cover all the transactions performed through both money order systems and the standard banking money order procedures. As a matter of fact, the number of money orders processed in 2007 only reached about 200,000. Experts believe the increase in the number of such transactions last year had to do with the population’s enhanced economic

12 companies have been excluded from Sverdlovsk Region Builders’ Union recently. The decision was taken by the union’s board after the companies had failed to pay their membership fees in 2007 and 2008. Among the excluded companies are: Domostroy, UKS Holding, Engineer, STKU, Uralmetallurgmontazh, UMPTK Uralmetallurgmontazh, Spasskiye Vorota Insurance Company, Sverdlovskgrazhdanstroy Trust, Insight Corporation, Engineer-Project, Polur, and a state-run company dealing in construction and maintenance of traffic engineering in Sverdlovsk Region’s cities and villages, Sverdlovsk Region Builders’

Uralfinprombank came up with a performance report for 2008. It turns out that the amount of attracted investment went down in the last quarter of the year; nevertheless, the overall efficiency indicators increased in 2008 compared with the data available for 2007. Still, the bank reports the outbreak of the global financial crisis prevented the business from keeping up with the first half of the year’s growth rates. Uralfinprombank’s balance sheet total amounted to 4,107 million RUR in 2008, the volume of attracted resources came to 3,345 million RUR, while the bank’s lending portfolio

Ural Airlines launched more special offers on its Yekaterinburg-Saint Petersburg-Yekaterinburg flights. The airline’s customers can now save more money by booking and buying their tickets at least seven or four days in advance. In case one books and buys a return ticket seven days early, the ticket will cost 10,080 RUR; a single ticket will cost 5,100 RUR. In case one books and buys a return ticket four days early, the ticket will cost 10,580 RUR; a single ticket will cost 5,600 RUR. None of these prices cover the fuel fee, the airline’s press secretary reports. What is more, Ural Airlines is

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) has recently adopted a new version of Environmental Policy. The program was drawn up within the framework of the company’s Mission and Strategic Goals; it made the reduction of harmful environmental impact one of the company’s strategic goals. This reduction is also expected to keep MMK’s produce competitive on the global metal goods market for a long time. The Environmental Policy provides for the introduction of a new environmental management system based on ISO 14001:2004 requirements at MMK Group’s enterprises. Then, the environmental security of

RBC.Rating reports SKB-Bank was one of Russia’s Top 100 most profitable banks on October 1, 2008. The bank scored the 60th position in the rating. According to RBC.Rating, SKB-Bank’s profits amounted to 538.1 million RUR in January through September 2008, which exceeded the figures for a year earlier by 36.5% and thus secured the bank’s promotion in the rating by as many as twenty-two positions up.

Pipe Metallurgical Company (TMK) shipped 3,227,000 tons of steel pipes to its customers last year, which was 5% better than the year before. Excluding the contribution made by TMK IPSCO, TMK shipped 2,738,000 tons of produce to its customers, which falls short of the figures for 2007 by 11%. The company explains this had to do with a decrease in the seamless pipe production at Taganrog Metallurgical Plant in January-September 2008 because of having to stop using some obsolete machinery and installing the new PQF mill. ‘Besides, our large-diameter pipe shipments dropped by 38.6% because some

VUZ-Bank’s net profit plummeted by 286.657 million RUR, or 295.43% in the last quarter of 2008. In the third quarter of the year, for instance, the bank made 97.03 million RUR worth of net profit, while its net loss came to 189.627 million RUR in the fourth quarter of 2008. The bank reports this decrease in the net profit has been brought about by the 233.78-million-ruble increase in debt reserves.

URSA Bank reports the company came up with a special buy-out program for its own debt obligations. According to this program, the bank intends to buy its Eurobonds issued by URSA Finance Plc (formerly known as Sibacademfinance Plc.). This issue’s nominal volume comes to ?400m; the bank went through with the bond issue in May 2007, and these are to be retired in May 2010; the coupon interest rate was determined at 7% a year. URSA Bank is planning to buy its bonds on the market or through a number of private transactions. URSA Bank’s Managing Director John McNaughton notes the bank’s earlier

Having acquired the business, Probusinessbank now has to meet the claims laid by Bank24.ru’s customers. The latter, in its turn, used to handle the payment transactions of a pyramid scheme that collapsed about two years ago, Kommersant reports. For one, Moscow Arbitration Court accepted the claim laid by a Yekaterinburg dweller Sergey Khlopov against Global Gaming Expo (GGE), its founder Alexei Kalinichenko, and Bank24.ru. Khlopov insists on declaring invalid the agreements he signed with the defendants because of GGE’s proclaimed insolvency. In the meantime, financially, Khlopov’s claim will

‘The current tourist demand is extremely low. The dramatic market downfall is obvious, both Moscow and Yekaterinburg keep canceling more and more flights. The majority of cancelled flights were those bound for some warm, beach destinations. What is more, people simply stopped booking in advance; most agents haven’t even sold the tours offered for the end of February. Even special ‘hot’ offers are not selling very well. The reason for this is both the growing euro and dollar exchange rates and the financial crisis,’ Inna Tour Travel Agency’s Director Inna Averyanova said to an UrBC reporter.

400 billion RUR entered the Russian banking system in the form of deposits in December 2008, Chairman of the Central Bank of Russia Sergey Ignatiev reported at a special meeting on economic issues chaired by the President. Ignatiev feels things got back to normal in December. ‘The private customers’ deposits dropped by about 360 billion RUR in October; then, the amount remained practically the same in November and rose by 400 billion RUR in December. Given the troubles in the fall, we got a very positive result at the beginning of winter,’ he said. Andrei Melnikov, the Deposit Insurance