Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin discussed last week’s achievements with his deputies and set the goals for the coming week. He was quite satisfied with Deputy Governor Yuri Klepov’s announcement that the regional wage arrears had gone down by 20 million RUR. Besides, a few local enterprises called off their applications placed with the employment service regarding 535 prospective redundancies. Then, the Russian Federation Ministry of Regional Development agreed to provide the region with 900 million RUR (directed from the federal budget) needed to relocate people living in slum

‘Intourist Travel Shop (Intourist’s 100% daughter enterprise) has nearly completed the acquisition of Yekaterinburg-based Rosstour’s 51% shareholding. Even though the transaction is not fully through yet, the principal decision has already been made and finalized, the spokeswoman for Intourist Yulia Krylova said to an UrBC reporter. ‘The purchase of Rosstour’s network will allow Intourist Travel Shop to improve on its retail sales and thus building up Intourist’s share of the Ural market,’ she explained. Rosstour runs twenty-one own offices and four franchising-based ones at the moment. ‘We

‘Some businesses closely connected with Probusinessbank bought over 90% of Bank24.ru’s shares, of which 20% were acquired by Probusinessbank itself and the remaining amount by the other members of Life Group,’ Probusinessbank’s Vice President Grigory Galitskikh says. ‘The transaction was carried out in the early hours of December 5, 2008. The trilateral agreement, the third party being the Deposit Insurance Agency, had been signed the day before. The decision regarding the bank’s capital was made by the bank’s BOD,’ he adds. ‘The bank is to join Life Group. The future of Bank24.ru’s brand and

The Deposit Insurance Agency reports a loss occurrence regarding Tyumenenergobank starting December 4, 2008. Tyumenenergobank’s provisional administration has started working on the list of the bank’s liabilities involving its depositors. The list will be placed with the Deposit Insurance Agency within seven days of the bank’s license being annulled. Then, the agency is to publish the information regarding the place, time, and format of placing applications for compensation within seven days of getting this list. The news will be announced via the Bank of Russia Bulletin, the local press, and

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of private individuals’ deposits and other investments in Tagilbank valid for 31 to 90 days went down by 36.41% (from 20.546 million RUR to 13.064 million RUR) in October 2008.

SKB-Bank’s bonds (state file number 40100705B) have been included in the Bank of Russia’s Lombard List. This inclusion signifies the Bank of Russia’s recognition of SKB-Bank’s stock’s quality. The Central Bank of Russia reports the inclusion criteria are based on the compliance of the issuer’s rating obtained from at least one of the foreign agencies (Standard & Poor's, Fitch Ratings or Moody's Investors Service) with that determined by the Bank of Russia, the bank’s press officer reports. ‘This means that the Bank of Russia gives a very favorable assessment of SKB-Bank’s bonds

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of Rosprirodnadzor (the state environmental watchdog) carried out a number of inspections at regional enterprises. As a result, Pervouralsk-based Russian Chrome 1915 was found guilty of twelve environmental violations and was therefore given five orders, the spokesperson for Rosprirodnadzor reports. The enterprise will also have to face administrative prosecution as a legal entity.

The Bank of Russia’s PR Department reports that due to Tyumenenergobank’s inability to meet the creditors’ demands, a decision was made to annul the license allowing the bank to perform banking operations starting December 4, 2008. The bank’s former file number was 2419 as of July 12, 1993. The Bank of Russia’s decision was validated by order OD 915 as of December 3, 2008 and was based on Article 19 and Article 20 (part 2, paragraph 4) of the Federal Bill On Banks and Banking Activity and Article 74 (part 3) of the Federal Bill On The Central Bank of The Russian Federation (The Bank of

Following the decision taken by Evraz Group’s Board of Directors, Alexander Abramov was elected BOD Chairman, thus succeeding Alexander Frolov, who is to remain the company’s President, the company’s press officer reports. The main idea behind the new appointment is expanding the scope of strategic and tactical decision-making. Alexander Abramov will be responsible for coordinating the Board of Directors’ performance, while Alexander Frolov is to go on with the daily management of the company’s metallurgical and ore mining enterprises.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Yekaterinburg Municipal Bank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year went down by 12.08% (from 209.4 million RUR to 184.1 million RUR) in October 2008.

Leader Holding Company acquired 33.3216% of CIT Capital after all the rights and responsibilities associated with these shares were transferred to Leader Holding Company as a result of the business’s reorganization. At the same time, CIT Capital went through with the 100% equity carve-out in CIT Yekaterinburg’s authorized capital.

Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin awarded the Medal of Honor to the region’s Minister of Agriculture Ivan Feklin after the Russian Federation President Dmitriy Medvedev signed an order to this extent to reward the Minister for his work achievements and longstanding conscientious service. Ivan Feklin has been the Minister of Agriculture for three years now. His strategy is based on the unified state policy aimed at the agribusiness’s development and providing the region’s dwellers with good quality foods. The ministry keeps working on the farms’ technical upgrading and introduction of

MDM-Bank and URSA Bank announced recently that their stockholders decided to put their shares together in order to set up a banking holding and thus one of Russia’s leading universal banks. ‘Following the merger, the new bank, with its 72-billion-ruble capital and 523 billion RUR worth of assets is to become one of the country’s major banks. This merger of two strong and reputable banks results from in-depth strategic analysis and is bound to be mutually beneficial. In fact, the new bank will be able to take advantage of over 500 offices located in all of the country’s federal districts,’

Sverdlovsk Region’s Arbitration Court prohibited any transactions UIT Uralstroy might want to carry out regarding the debatable land allotment in Kosmonavtov St. and Voikov St. in Yekaterinburg. The claim to this extent was laid by the region’s public prosecution authorities which insist that the renting agreement was invalid and prohibited any state registration of property rights over the estate located in the above-mentioned area. The court considered the prosecution authorities’ argument as to the fact that an attempt to register one’s property rights might be made in the course of the

Probusinessbank is the most likely customer of Bank24.ru’s controlling shareholding at the moment, Novosti Advertising & Information Agency claims. ‘The agreement might be signed as soon as this week,’ the agency says referring to their source (someone in the know of negotiations’ proceedings). Bank24.ru has been experiencing liquidity problems lately and even had to stop all external payments last week until an investor could be found. In November 2008, Bank24.ru applied for financial aid from the Central Bank of Russia and the Deposit Insurance Agency. Quite recently, the bank had to

Eurogreen Investment & Finance Company and Saxo Bank are going to hold a videoconference in Yekaterinburg on December 4, 2008. The agenda of the conference covers issues related to working with Saxo Trader platform. Saxo Trader is a globally recognized trading platform for shares, futures, CFDs, various types of currency and currency options at Europe, America, and Japan’s major exchanges. The videoconference starts at 7PM in Eurogreen’s office at 39 Gorkiy St. To apply, call +7(343) 3-101-104 or send your application at tarlinskaya@eurogreen.ru.

‘Bank Severnaya Kazna is now a part of Alfa Bank. In fact, we have never excluded the opportunity of business expansion through acquiring provincial banks,’ Alfa Bank’s Chairman Rushan Khvesyuk announced at a press conference in Yekaterinburg. ‘We are not going to disclose the sum of the transaction. The thing is, we’ve bought enough shares to be able to make decisions, that is, over 75%,’ he said. ‘The quantity and the quality of the bank’s assets were the important factors that motivated us to go through with the transaction. We were satisfied with the quality of the bank’s business and

Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service keeps looking into the case involving Koltsovo Airport of Yekaterinburg, TNK BP Holding, and Ural Oil Company. These are suspected of violating Article 11 (part 1) of the law on the protection of competition through jet fuel wholesale price collusion. Because of their alleged actions, the prices are maintained at a certain level in Sverdlovsk Region and the assortment of RT and TS 1 fuel as well as the range of sellers to choose from remains the same. The original hearing of the case was interrupted in September 2008.

Vladimir Frolov, the Chairman of Bank Severnaya Kazna, announced in the course of a press conference in Yekaterinburg that he was no longer going to be in the banking business. ‘I’m planning on taking some rest this month and deciding on what I want to do in the future,’ he said. Meanwhile, Bank Severnaya Kazna’s controlling shareholding has recently been bought by Alfa Bank. Vladimir Frolov is reported to have had 22.49% of the bank’s shares. ‘We intend to make our product range consistent with that of Alfa Bank in the nearest future. Bank Severnaya Kazna will no longer operate

‘Our company has already started making the human resources more efficient, and we are planning on making about 10% of our staff redundant. Then, we’ll also have to switch to a one-shift mode, which is expected to eliminate all the additional expenses caused by having to pay for working extra hours,’ LSR Group’s General Director Igor Levit said in the course of his interview to Bloomberg and Reuters. ‘We are already cutting down on managerial and administrative expenses,’ he added. LSR Group runs enterprises and offices in several Russian Federation’s constituencies, including Sverdlovsk