CEO Societe Generale Daniel Bouton is going to resign. The Financial Times reports this has to do with the financial scandal involving one of the bank’s traders who did $10bn worth of damage to the company. According to the bank’s press officer, though, the resignation is meant to signify the new page in the bank’s history after the whole thing is over.

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of April 16, 2008, the share price of BCS Consumer Sector Fund (BrokerCreditService Management Company) has gone down by 16.71% since the beginning of the year.

1.62 million RUR will be allocated from Chelyabinsk Region’s budget to set up Internet schools in the area. All of the region’s schools were provided with the Internet connection in July 2007, and these e-schools are going to become the next stage of the project that provides for virtual chemistry, physics, and biology labs and simulators that can assist the students in exam-taking. In addition, online lessons on all the topics a high school student is supposed to master within any given subject are provided. The study materials have been developed by the traditional textbook authors in

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year went down by 10.61% (from 125.628 million RUR to 112.3 million RUR) in January-March 2008.

Almaty, 17 April 2008 UC RUSAL, the worlds largest aluminium and alumina producer, announces that, within the framework of its joint venture in Kazakhstan, it has signed an agreement to sell a 50% share in coal mining at the Ekibastuzskoye coal field to Samruk Holding managing state assets. The mining at the Ekibastuzskoye coal field is in the areas of the Bogatyr and Severny coal mines in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan. Under the signed agreement, Samruk Holding will pay UC RUSAL USD 345 million accounting for a 50% share in coal mining at the Bogatyr and Severny coal mines. The cost of

‘The decree that prevents people with debts officially declared in courts from leaving the country came into effect on February 1, 2008. Debtors may not be allowed to go abroad for up to six months,’ head of Sverdlovsk Region’s division of the Federal Service of Court Officers Sergey Vinogradov said to UrBC. Vinogradov explained that this regulation only concerns executive orders issued by the court; the sum of the debt is irrelevant. ‘Some seventy people couldn’t go abroad last week alone,’ he added.

Sberbank of Russia, Visa International, and Aeroflot came up with a special offer known as Your Way to Beijing with Sberbank’s Visa Aeroflot; the offer is valid through May 31, 2008 and is dedicated to this year’s most memorable sports event: the Olympics to be held in China this summer. All of Sberbank’s cardholders who own Visa Classic Aeroflot and Visa Gold Aeroflot can take part in the prize-winning lottery provided they use these cards at least once to pay for their shopping. Prizes include two trips for two to the Olympics in Beijing. In addition, for every 30 RUR, $1, or ?1 you spend

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank URALSIB to state-run for-profit organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 100% (from 19.923 million RUR to zero) in January-March 2008.

The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was declared the bank with the Ural Federal District’s best investment policy in the course of a contest held among the best stock market players. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was able to increase the volume of its trading operations on the securities market by 3.1 times, or up to 521.319 billion RUR, in 2007 compared to 2006. The bank kept appearing in both MICEX and RTS (FORTS) ratings throughout the year. ‘The bank has everything in terms of resources and technologies to give its customers the fullest possible range of

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of for-profit self-regulatory organizations’ deposits in Universal Bank valid for 1 to 3 years went down by 97.33% (from 9.75 million RUR to 260,000 RUR) in January-March 2008.

‘Passenger service fees were raised by 11% in Koltsovo airport’s international terminal after the Federal Tariff Service approved of this,’ says Koltsovo airport’s PR Director Yulia Fedotova. ‘This recent increase was something that the Service went through with in most of Russia’s large airports of national importance. The letter Koltsovo airport received from the Federal Tariff Service stated, for instance, that the fees had to go up proportionally to the country’s socioeconomic development to ensure financial stability of natural monopolies like seaports, airports, and accompanying

ROEL Group has announced recently that they might actually buy Noviy Grad’s assets. Lev Tretyakov, CEO ROEL Asset Management (part of ROEL Group), says they have been considering the idea for a while now. ‘It’s early times yet to speak of the details of the prospective transaction; we are currently at the negotiations stage, and the decision will probably be taken soon,’ he adds. Right to a Dwelling, one of the local NGOs, reported earlier that ROEL Group that deals in resuscitation of dying businesses among other things might actually buy the assets of Yekaterinburg’s bankrupt developer.

Koltsovo airport of Yekaterinburg disputed the decision taken by Sverdlovsk Region division of the Federal Antimonopoly Service: the latter claims the airport is guilty of violating the competition protection laws. The Service declared on December 4, 2007 that Koltsovo airport, RusAviaJet, and Aviaprad could be charged with a secret collusion: the three companies made an agreement related to storage of petroleum products; as a result, jet fuel prices were strikingly different for Aviaprad and other carriers, despite the fact that it was one the same jet fuel all along. Aviaprad was thus

SKB-Bank was able to improve on both the volume and the number of mortgage loans it offered to customers in January-March 2008. The bank’s loan portfolio increased by 363.4 million RUR on April 1, 2008, or by 25% compared to a year earlier. As for the loans offered to people who’d like to buy an apartment currently under construction, the volume of these doubled compared with the volume of such loans issued in the first quarter of 2007. All in all, SKB-Bank offered its customers over 4,600 mortgage loans worth 4.5 billion RUR in January-March 2008.

Ural car factory AMUR owes Uralsevergaz 3,331,291 RUR for the natural gas the former has used by April 1, 2008, the spokesperson for Uralsevergaz reports.

MegaFon Ural is to launch its new Vacation tariffs on April 21, 2008; the new tariffs provide free incoming calls for a subscriber located outside their home network. If you use the Vacation in Russia option, all of your incoming calls will be free as long as you stay within the Russian borders. The offer is available for 400 RUR (VAT included). If you choose to use the Vacation Abroad option, all the incoming calls you get in any part of the world will be free of charge. This offer is available for 900 RUR (VAT included), MegaFon Ural’s press officer reports. A subscriber can use these

A group of delegates from Sverdlovsk Region, headed by Governor Eduard Rossel, is to take part in an economic forum in Baden-Baden, Germany, on April 16-19, 2008, the spokesperson for the Governor reports. The 9th Baden-Baden Economic Forum is one of the major international forums that the Governor normally takes part in every year. Eduard Rossel is going to make a report on Sverdlvosk Region in the course of the forum’s second section devoted to regions as the driving force behind the foreign economic cooperation and presentations of their foreign economic potentials. In addition, the

Experts from Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant and Pervouralsk New Pipe Plant (members of ChTPZ Group) and Uraltrubostal’s sales managers are to participate in the 13th international exhibition known as Iran Oil Show 2008 in Tehran, ChTPZ Group’s press officer said to UrBC. Iran Oil Show is one of the Middle East’s fastest-developing annual exhibitions, with over 1,000 companies from all over the world taking part in the event every year. For the first time this year, the show is supported by the Russian Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Group’s press officer says the company is

Sberbank’s Ural branch provided small businesses with 106.9 billion RUR worth of loans in 2007, while the amount of debt on this type of loans came to 44.4 billion RUR on January 1, 2008. This debt rose by 3.9 billion RUR within the first quarter of 2008 and thus reached 48.3 billion RUR. Small businesses make up some 86% of all the borrowers in the legal entities and sole traders category; the bank has about 10,000 loan agreements with these. ‘The lending technologies we employ with smaller companies take into account the peculiarities of their way of running business, which means we offer

‘The dollar’s position might slightly improve this week, but this won’t last long,’ says SKB-Bank’s Dealing Director Anton Khavin. ‘The European Central Bank’s meeting that resulted in the decision to keep the refinancing rate as it is (that is, at 4%), was definitely the highlight of last week. Despite the bank’s anxiety related to inflation, they might still go through with decreasing the rate further in the second half of the year because of the poor performance of some European countries,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve System’s minutes, no dramatic rate