OREANDA-NEWS. May 30, 2007.  RCUS, founded by RAO UES of Russia and several other large financial and industrial companies, was amongst the first private operators in Russia's housing and utilities sector. The basic aims the company pursues are to bring about changes in approaches towards the control of municipal entities, and to ensure growth in the quality of services provided; gradually, RCUS is coming to realise these goals.

Currently, RCUS' management and subsidiary companies are operating in 12 regions in the Russian Federation, mainly according to long-term lease agreements for communal property; they offer a wide range of services: heating, power, and water supply, water disposal, as well as marketing activities.

The amount of consolidated revenues gained by the OJSC RCUS Group of Companies in 2006 stood at 24.2 billion rubles, 1.8 times higher than the equivalent figure for 2005. The volume of investments already placed by the company into the municipal infrastructure of the regions is worth 1.8 billion rubles, including 1.3 billion rubles invested in 2006; in the same year, the RCUS Group of Companies also achieved a positive value for its net assets, of roughly 1.2 billion rubles.

Currently, the company's shareholders, RAO UES of Russia and IES Holding, are trying to increase the authorised capital of RCUS, from 1 to 4 billion rubles, through the additional issue of shares.

In view of the anniversary, Mikhail Slobodin, the President of RCUS, Nikolai Brusnikin, the First Deputy Chairman of the Board, and Nikolai Stepanov, the Deputy Chairman of the Board and Executive Director, congratulated the company's entire staffing team. In their address, they noted in particular that: "Our aim is to introduce a new, functioning system for the housing and utilities sector, to set new standards within the sector, and to create a modern market for utility services". As part of the anniversary celebrations, over one hundred employees of OJSC RCUS and its affiliate companies were presented with certificates of merit by the RCUS management team.

Amongst the other notable dignitaries to publicly wish the Russian Communal Utility Systems employees a happy birthday were: Anatoly Chubais, Chairman of the Board for OJSC RAO UES of Russia; Yury Tyrtyshov, Deputy Minister for Regional Development in the Russian Federation; Vladimir Gusev, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Economic Policy, Entrepreneurship and Ownership; Nikolai Denin, Governor of the Bryansk Region; the heads of the cities of Vladimir, Izhevsk, Blagoveshchensk, Dzerzhinsk and Chaikovsky; and other representatives from regional and municipal authorities, partner companies, and financial institutions, with all of whom RCUS has cooperated successfully.