Auchan is going to set up more hypermarkets in Yekaterinburg, Oleg Zemtsov, the spokesperson for Deputy Mayor Viktor Konteev, said to UrBC referring to a statement made by Auchan’s Development Executive in the Urals Ernest Elizarov. The French company is planning to introduce four more Auchan hypermarkets in Yekaterinburg within the next three years. One store is to be located next to the Central Stadium downtown, another one will be situated in one of the shopping centers in Kosmonavtov Ave., and more stores will appear in the northern and eastern parts of the city. In addition, an Auchan

Last year, Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch extended the number of foreign currencies that one could freely exchange to eleven. Alongside with the traditional U.S. dollars and Euros, Sberbank’s Ural branch now deals with the UK pounds sterling, Canadian dollars, Swiss francs, Czech korunas, Swedish kronas, Ukrainian hryvnias, Chinese yuans, Japanese yens, and Kazakh tenges. The U.S. dollars and Euros are still the most popular currencies with the bank’s customers, although the demand for the pounds sterling keeps increasing as well. The bank now owns twenty-four ATMs that allow a customer to

Standard & Poor's put Uralsvyazinform, one of Russian landline communications operators, with its BB- long-term credit rating, on the CreditWatch list and gave it the Negative Rating Outlook due to the company’s inability to attract 1.5 billion RUR ($61m) worth of loans, which they needed to do in order to refinance their liabilities. This information is available from Standard & Poor's official website. 'The fact that we placed Uralsvyazinform on the CreditWatch list means their rating can either be affirmed at the current level or demoted, depending on how

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations despite overdraft went down by 46.51% (from 16.234 million RUR to 8.683 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service refused to let Novolipetsk Integrated Metallurgical Complex (NLMK) acquire 100% of Maxi Group’s shares. NLMK is one of Russia’s major metallurgical enterprises whose share on the metal goods market comes to more than 35% for many types of products. Maxi Group controls a number of electro-metallurgical plants and companies dealing in production, recycling, and sales of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. NLMK was not allowed to buy the shares because some of the papers the enterprise provided contained inaccurate data on the company’s employees who already owned

The volume of Sberbank of Russia’s Ural branch’s nominal accounts used to invest in precious metals went up by 1.4 times compared to 2006 and reached over 6.4 tons. The bank had more than 14,500 nominal accounts of this kind on January 1, 2008, with 2.2 tons of gold kept in these accounts. The volume of retail sales of gold came to more than 106 kilograms of bullions and 312 kilograms of coins, whereas the sales of silver reached 1,396 kilograms in 2007. In addition, the bank offered its customers over 350 nominations of coins made from precious metals in thirty different countries as part of

Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won in the all-Russian contest on organization of greater social efficiency in the country in 2007. MMK was given a third-degree diploma in the Implementation of Social Programs category, the company’s PR Department reports. The contest is coordinated by the Russian Federation Ministry for Economic Development and Trade, the Ministry for Healthcare and Social Development, and some executive authorities as well as employers’ unions and trade unions. The competition has been held annually since the year 2000 in order to draw the public’s attention to

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank24.ru to for-profit self-regulatory organizations despite overdraft went down by 36.17% (from 26.787 million RUR to 17.097 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year went down by 19.56% (from 1.38 million RUR to 1.11 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

According to the National Managers’ League’s profitability ranking of unit investment trusts as of February 13, 2008, the share price of Alfa Capital Consumer Sector (Alfa Capital Management Company) has dropped by 9.88% since the beginning of the year.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Tyumenenergobank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for up to 30 days plummeted by 99.38% (from 1,054,205,000 RUR to 6,538,000 RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

The Minister for International and Foreign Economic Relations of Sverdlovsk Region Alexander Kharlov met the head of KFW’s Russian representation Daniil Algulyan and UBS Managing Director for Eastern Europe Martina Bigliardi Moehr. Both of these meetings had to do with the foreign banks’ plans to present their potential to the regional government and consider setting up branches in Yekaterinburg. Mr. Kharlov made a report on Sverdlovsk Region’s economic achievements in 2007 and spoke on the most promising fields of the parties’ prospective cooperation, whereupon Ms Bigliardi Moehr said she

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Bank Uralsib to state-run for-profit organizations despite overdraft went down by 48.54% (from 84.061 million RUR to 43.261 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

The volume of deposits opened by private individuals in the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development rose by 42.4% and reached 20,160,500,000 RUR in 2007, which is the 31st best result among the Top 100 Russian banks according to Interfax-CEA’s rating. 'The fact that the Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development invariably does very well in terms of attracting private investors’ money proves that the bank’s deposit offers are quite competitive. The bank comes up with some new appealing offers on a regular basis, trying to improve them so as to meet the customers’ changing needs

SKB-Bank’s Board of Directors approved of the decision taken at the extraordinary general meeting regarding the increase in the bank’s authorized capital. The capital is to be raised by 35% and will thus reach 1,822,775,000 RUR, the bank’s press officer reports. This is expected to be done through an additional share issue of 471,630,000 ordinary shares with face value of 1 RUR each. The share price was determined by the BOD at 3.7 RUR apiece.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralfinprombank to sole traders despite overdraft went down by 100% (from 15 million RUR to zero) in December 2007-January 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Sverdlovsk Gubernskiy Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 14.39% (from 256.191 million RUR to 219.33 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

'METCOMBANK is working hard to support its customers, especially those who get their pay through the bank’s plastic card accounts, by offering them some more advantageous types of loans. As a result, our customers are now using the credit having a bank card entitles them to,’ the bank’s press officer said to UrBC. 'It appears that using a bank card as a ‘family purse’ of sorts is the prevailing trend on the consumer lending market nowadays. People use cards to pay for everything, so the volume of these types of credit amounted to 114 million RUR on January 1, 2008 compared with only

According to the Central Bank of Russia, volume of loans given by Plato Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 10.56% (from 61.96 million RUR to 55.395 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Universal Bank to sole traders for 181 days to 1 year dropped by 19.39% (from 16.5 million RUR to 13.3 million RUR) in December 2007-January 2008.