‘Factoring is a very important and promising thing for SKB-Bank and something we’re particularly proud of,’ says the bank’s Chairman Vladimir Pukhov. ‘The Ural factoring market had a million-something turnover as recently as one year ago, but we have been able to reach a new developmental stage by getting past the figure of 1 billion RUR in only six months. According to the preliminary estimates, our bank is now Russia’s tenth or twelfth largest player on the factoring market,’ Mr. Pukhov said.

‘The court’s hearing of the claim laid by Pantheon Ltd. (one of the company’s creditors) against HydroSpetsStroy Ltd. (general contractor of Noviy Grad, the developer) was left over unitl March 1, 2007,’ HydroSpetsStroy’s trustee in bankruptcy Olga Rushitskaya said to UrBC. ‘Pantheon Ltd. demands that it be included in the docket,’ Ms Rushitskaya says. The Court of Appeal of Perm has already considered the appeal of Ural Alliance, one of Noviy Grad’s creditors. The plaintiff placed a claim with Sverdlovsk Region Court of Arbitration asking to nullify the delivery contract signed by

A group of representatives of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil (part of Evraz Group) took part in the International Blast-Furnace Makers forum, reports the spokesperson for Evraz Group. The forum gave engineers from about thirty Russian and foreign companies a chance to discuss their improvement suggestions in the field of ferrous metallurgy. The experts of Metallurgical Industrial Complex of Nizhniy Tagil presented their improved vanadium cast-iron production method that can be used in large-size furnaces. This technique has been developed by a group of company’s experts and

The turnover of Yekaterinburg-based catering companies amounted to 8.35 billion RUR in 2006, which is 20.2% better than a year earlier. The shares of large and medium-scale businesses went down 6.7% and 31.9%, respectively. Small businesses are responsible for 68.1% of the total turnover, which exceeds the figures for 2005 by 6.7%. All these data were produced at the meeting devoted to evaluation of the consumer service development and of the Commodities Market Committee’s performance in 2006. The share of the catering companies in the total turnover of the city amounts to 4% (just as in

‘Tiny banks are limited in the scope of their activity and are now having a hard time keeping their share of the market. At the same time, the Central Bank of Russia has been imposing more and more regulations lately. This is why a great number of such small banks are openly or secretly preparing to sell and are even negotiating with their business partners (namely, large federal banks),’ Chairman of SKB-Bank Vladimir Pukhov says relating to the growing popularity of bank mergers and takeovers in 2006. ‘In one or two years’ time, we’ll see the how these negotiations will result in the

According to the bank’s official report, Severnaya Kazna lowered the interest rates on deposits at call: the Golden Ladder deposit now yields 7.5% to 10.5% a year (or 1.5% to 2.5% less than it used to), the foreign currency deposits will bring .5% to 1% less profit (the annual interest rate on dollar accounts now comes to 6%-8.5%, that on euro accounts amounts to 5% to 7.5%, depending on the amount of money placed and the amount of time the money is kept with the bank). The one-year-long Premium deposit offers the interest of 5% a year, or 5% less than before; if you’d like to invest your

‘No instances of bird’s flue have been discovered in Sverdlovsk Region so far,’ Alexei Feoktistov, the spokesperson for Sverdlovsk Region Ministry for Agriculture and Food said to UrBC regarding the recent outbreaks of the virus in some parts of Moscow Region. ‘We don’t think this is likely to happen in Sverdlovsk Region. Our poultry farms are monitored on regular basis, and there also exists a special committee headed by Sergey Chemesov, the Minister for Agriculture and Food. Mr. Chemesov is personally taking care of the question,’ Mr. Feoktistov explained. ‘We haven’t taken any additional

‘No information related to investigative actions involving UralTransBank can be made public yet, but we do have some results,’ says Valeriy Gorelikh, the press officer of Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs. Mr. Gorelikh noted that the public wouldn’t get access to any data regarding the investigation for a while, and it was unclear as of yet when the officers were going to produce a report on the actual results of the inquiry. The Economic Crimes Division of Sverdlovsk Region Department of Internal Affairs sent a group of officers to UralTransBank’s headquarters last Thursday.

‘Following McDonald’s bombings in Saint-Petersburg yesterday, Carnival Trade and Entertainment Center is going to take additional security steps in the whole area and in McDonald’s in particular,’ Marketing Director of Carnival Alexei Malygin said to UrBC. ‘We have a united security service at the moment that takes care of the whole mall. In addition, McDonald’s has its own security personnel,’ Mr. Malygin said. A bomb went off on the premises of Saint-Petersburg-based McDonald’s yesterday. Six people were injured, including two children. As regards Yekaterinburg, there are two McDonald’s

Severouralsk bauxite mine got its first portion of ore from Little Red Riding Hood mine. SUAL Group had invested 710 million RUR in the project, reports the company’s press officer. Little Red Riding Hood mine is a result of merging mine 14-14-bis with mine 15-15-bis (the latter has not been operating since January 1, 2007 due to using up all the ore deposits). The launch of Little Red Riding Hood aims to retain SUAL’s ore-extracting capacity as well as to cut transportation costs and to enhance the labor safety (the grooves of the original mines were badly damaged by underground waters and

According to Kommersant newspaper, Sverdlovsk Region division of Federal Antimonopoly Service finalized the case of Yekaterinburg-based Koltsovo airport. The Service decided the airport would have to pay 16.75 million RUR to the federal budget; in the meantime, the Service believes this sum only comes to 2.9% of all the profits made by the airport illegitimately, (these profits are estimated at over 500,000,000 RUR). Sverdlovsk Region division of Federal Antimonopoly Service declared the airport was violating the competition protection law as early as the end of 2006. Yet as Koltsovo was

Rosstat (the state statistics agency) looked at success of Russian industry in January 2007. The industrial output went up 8.4% and the manufacturing activity output by 17.3%. The mining operations rose by 4.2% compared to one year earlier; production and distribution of electricity, gas, and water dropped by 10.5% as the demand for heat was relatively low due to warm weather. The manufacturing industry output grew by 17.3%; this is a record figure, outstripped only by that for December 2003 when the growth rate came to 23.1%. The increase in the manufacturing activity output (compared to a

‘Aeroflot-Russian Airlines is the only Russian company to hold the IOSA-IATA certificate. Ural Airlines is one of the first companies that have applied for IOSA audit. We expect all carriers operating in Russia and the CIS to undergo the procedure eventually,’ says Dmitriy Shamraev, the regional representative of IATA in Russia and the CIS. Ural Airlines announced it was going to get the certificate last year. IOSA is one of IATA’s programs aimed at enhancing flight safety; it complements the international civil aviation program and seeks to provide good quality safety routines. ‘IOSA

Customs and law-enforcement officers of Nizhniy Tagil, Sverdlovsk Region, found some sportswear with Puma, Adidas, and Reebok logos on them while examining one of the local shops in the course of the special counterfeited goods inspection. The clothes looked decisively fake, and their owner was unable to prove that he had the right to actually sell branded goods of those companies. Yet the sole trader was deliberately storing and selling pirated sportswear in order to make a profit, thus violating the rights of Adidas Ltd., Reebok International Ltd., and Puma-Rus Ltd. – the exclusive owners

The Federal Transportation Surveillance Agency (aka Rostransnadzor) and the Federal Air Fleet Agency (aka Rosaviation) declared on February 12, 2007 that it was no longer legal for a number of Russian air carriers to perform chartered or one-time flights to the EU, reports RosBusinessConsulting referring to the spokesperson for the Russian Federation Department of Transport. These limitations have been caused by a lot of complaints from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and Transport placed with Rostransnadzor and Rosaviation in January 2007 after the SAFA examinations

‘UralTransBank has been trying to exert some pressure on us through various civic organizations such as the Association of Regional Russian Banks, for example. Rather than trying to look for a suitable compromise, the bank keeps fighting the information battle. However, we don’t feel like joining in the fight as we don’t believe it’s in any way ethical,’ the spokesperson for ROSNO Insurance Company said to UrBC relating to the company’s clash with UralTransBank over insurance payments. UralTransBank has not made any decision so far as to what to do about a number of insured events ROSNO

According to the official press release of Severnaya Kazna, the bank’s authorized capital has recently experienced some share-ownership changes. Chairman of the Board of Directors Vladimir Frolov raised his share in the bank’s authorized capital through acquiring some ordinary shares from Chairman of the Supervisory Board Andrei Volchik on February 16, 2007. This means Mr. Frolov now has a 22.313% share holding (against the 21.313% one he owned up to February 15, 2007); Mr. Volchik’s share dropped from 1.687% to .687%. This is the third time over the last few months the bank’s stockholders

Unless Russia adopts a new scheme for charging for housing maintenance, the regional problems in the field might simply get out of control, says Vyacheslav Prakin, General Director of Sverdlovsk Communal Networks. According to Mr. Prakin, the shamefully low wages of people who provide services to Sverdlovsk Region’s city-dwellers have brought the whole system to the verge of a collapse. The power suppliers of Severouralsk, for instance, are ready to go on strike in order to protect their rights and their families. Other towns are hardly doing any better. Skilled workers and young

The construction of Botanicheskaya underground station in the south of Yekaterinburg will begin on March 1, 2007, reports the spokesperson for the city council. The new station will be located in the vicinity of Dirigible trade center. Unlike the existing stations, Botanicheskaya is to be situated almost on the surface; its lowest point will not even exceed twelve meters. The authorities expect the station to start operating in 2010.

Following the requirement that all issuers publish information vital to the company’s share price, URSA Bank reports that its bonds can now be found at MICEX stock exchange. 1,500,000 interest-bearing inconvertible bearer bonds (state serial number 40600323V as of December 22, 2006) have been allowed to participate in the bidding process without the listing procedures. URSA Bank is the result of a recent merger of the Urals and Siberia’s largest banks (SibAcademBank and Uralvneshtorgbank). The new bank rates Russia’s fifth in terms of regional network development; it has over 260 offices in