‘Egypt is the most affordable holiday destination today, which is why the demand this place enjoys is enormous. However, the country’s hotels have a somewhat limited capacity, so not all those willing to spend a few days in Egypt can find a place to stay. So far, the problem has affected travel agents from Saint Petersburg and Moscow, whereas Yekaterinburg ones are doing okay for the time being,’ Director of Inna Tour Travel Agency Inna Averyanova said to UrBC. ‘Usually, these are the travel agents who haven’t made enough hotel reservations in advance who have a hard time placing their

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by AGROPROMBANK Credit to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 91 to 180 days went down by 43.64% (from 770.281 million RUR to 434.158 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Ural Innovational Commercial Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for up to 30 days went down by 100% (from 1 million RUR to zero) in January-October 2007.

‘If you don’t want to arrive in a foreign country only to find that the hotel room you’ve paid for has been offered to someone else, just stick with dependable travel agents. A respectable company signs certain agreements with the hotels; the terms of these agreements are both strict and clear, so any chance of leaving a traveler not properly accommodated is canceled out,’ Director of Zima Leto Travel Agency Olga Gulyar said to UrBC. It has been reported that the number of charter flights to Egypt might be reduced beginning from November 20, 2007 due to increased number of Russian tourists in

The value of net assets of Energy - Mixed Investments (the unit investment trust) managed by Eurogreen Management Company Ltd. went down by .08% between November 6, 2007 and November 7, 2007. According to Eurogreen’s website, the company’s net assets decreased from 4,043,827.89 RUR on November 6, 2007 to 4,040,717.02 RUR on November 7, 2007.

‘Maxi Group’s financial policy has not been perfect in the last few years; I see their careless attitude to risk management as their greatest faux pas; besides, the company’s debts grew so large that it turned out to be very difficult to pay them off,’ Director of Accord Invest’s Ural branch Konstantin Selyanin said to UrBC. Maxi Group now owes some 34 billion RUR to thirty banks altogether. ‘The company could do the following: firstly, make some arrangements with its creditors and go for refinancing, yet this alone wouldn’t save them. Secondly, the business could be sold, but it would have

Fitch Ratings affirmed SKB-Bank’s long-term Issuer Default Rating at B- and its outlook as Stable last week. The bank’s short-term Issuer Default Rating was affirmed at B, its individual rating at D/E. These ratings are based upon SKB-Bank’s nice profit figures, good asset quality, extended regional customer network, and improved corporate management. At the same time, the ratings reflect the bank’s relatively small operational scale, little geographical spread, and fast-growing loan portfolio. SKB-Bank is based in Yekaterinburg and has been building up on the number of customers in the Urals

The Finance magazine came up with a list of Russia’s largest companies whose shares can be bought and sold freely and whose market capitalization comes to more than $1bn. URSA Bank’s capitalization ($2.4bn, or 58.7 billion RUR) was declared Russia’s 73d largest. As regards the banking niche, URSA Bank was called Russia’s 6th worthiest bank. Sberbank, with its capitalization of $96.7bn, or 2.4 trillion RUR, was definitely the first, followed by VTB ($32bn, or 794 billion RUR), Bank of Moscow ($6.9bn, or 171.7 billion RUR), Rosbank ($5.1bn, or 126.5 billion RUR), and Uralsib ($4.7bn, or 117.5

Ural Airlines’ passenger turnover went up by 14% in October 2007 compared to a year earlier and reached 255 million passenger-kilometers. The carrier operated 892 flights, including 607 domestic ones, 181 international ones, and 104 flights around the CIS, the company’s press officer reports. The airline flew some 90,000 passengers in October 2007, which is 16% better than in October 2006 and yet a little worse than in September 2007 (the drop can be explained by a seasonal downfall between the summer vacations and the winter holiday season). Most passengers used the carriers’ Moscow- and

The bank’s official website informs the customers that since November 12, 2007 is a public holiday in the United States, Severnaya Kazna is not going to handle any outward dollar payments for one day. All the dollar payments and stock trading operations will be performed on November 13, 2007, though. In the meantime, one can still sell or buy dollars within the bank as well as make inward payments on November 12, 2007. In addition, it is also possible to make euro payments and stock trading operations as usual

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by SberInvestBank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 1 to 3 years went down by 16.73% (from 122.011 million RUR to 101.6 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

The Expert-Ural magazine has recently published its Expert-Ural 400 rating that features the Urals’ top 400 companies ranked on the basis of their sales figures in 2006. The Ural Bank for Reconstruction and Development was rated the 4th among Ural-West Siberian Region’s largest banks and the 1st among the banks located in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk Regions. The bank’s sales volume reached 3,314,400,000 RUR last year, which is 42.4% better than in 2005.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Tagilbank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 31 to 90 days went down by 100% (from 26.25 million RUR to zero) in January-October 2007.

UC RUSAL coordinated some social project workshops for teachers and schoolchildren who live in Sverdlovsk Region’s cities and towns where the company’s enterprises are based, UC RUSAL’s local press officer Roman Lukichev reports. The workshops in Kamensk-Uralskiy, Severouralsk, and Krasnoturinsk were organized by the company’s Social Welfare Projects Center; the workshops were conducted by some experienced coaches from Tyumen Development Fund, a charity organization. The coaches spoke on the aims and challenges of a social project and walked the participants through the process of writing a

One of SKB-Bank’s offices located in Urai, Tyumen Region, offered its first loan to a small business, that is, to an owner of a store that sells furs and premium quality women’s wear. The borrower says he needs a loan to be able to buy a new fall/winter collection. 'SKB-Bank’s Urai office was only opened a few days ago, yet we have already been able to feel the great demand our services are enjoying here,’ the office manager Vyacheslav Yakovlev reports. SKB-Bank now has nine offices and subsidiaries in Tyumen Region (including Yugra and Yamal) all in all.

Central Bank of Russia reports volume of loans given by Uralfinance Commercial Bank to for-profit self-regulatory organizations for 91 to 180 days went down by 30.27% (from 17.9 million RUR to 12.482 million RUR) in January-October 2007.

'A holding of URSA Bank’s shares that Troika Dialog has recently acquired only makes it a minority shareholder and offers the company no substantial control over the bank; however, Troika Dialog is definitely going to become a more influential expert and consultant,’ Finam Investment Bank’s analyst Vladimir Sergievskiy said to UrBC. 'URSA Bank has been doing business with Troika Dialog for a while now; their latest success story involved going through with two preference share issues in 2006 and 2007 that made URSA Bank’s capital rise by $488m. I think Troika Dialog is interested in

Klyuchevsk Ferrous Alloys Works’ net profit volume went down by 37% in July-September 2007, the company’s quarterly report states. Profits dropped from 86,009,046 RUR in the second quarter of the year to 54,009,575 RUR in the third quarter, which means the figures decreased by 31,009,471 RUR over the course of three months. The company explains this was due to a decrease in output and sales of ferrotitanium; this, in its turn, was brought about by plummeting global prices, plenty of titanium scrap accumulated all over the world, and noticeably less favorable ferrotitanium market opportunities

Uralmash Engineering (Uralmash Machine-Building Corporation’s daughter eEnterprise) developed a new division called O&G Drilling Machinery. The spokesperson for the corporation reports the creation of a new division came as a response to Russian oil-and gas companies’ increased need for drilling equipment. ‘The drilling machinery market growth means Uralmash must go back to designing and producing this machinery. We used to produce hundreds of rigs a year, and these are still used in the Far North, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Now we are busy employing more skilled workers, and our

Mayor of Yekaterinburg Arkadiy Chernetskiy met the Kingdom of Denmark’s Embassy in Russia’s counselor for trade and economic relations to discuss the upcoming introduction of a Danish trade mission in Yekaterinburg as well as the prospects of some mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of trade and investment, the spokesperson for the city council reports. The counselor said most of the process technicalities will have been settled by the end of this year, and the trade mission will probably start operating at the beginning of 2008. Mr. Chernetskiy said he was prepared to provide all