OAO Pnevmostroymashina published its open address to the company’s creditor banks through Kommersant. The letter was carried as an advertising material and called for understanding and support on the creditors’ part.

Now the plant’s creditors are to meet on March 29, 2010.

‘Sadly, the recession has put an end to our productive cooperation; Also, the plummeting demand for hydraulic equipment among all the basic construction and road machinery manufacturers of Russia and the CIS has made things difficult for the plant. Our sales dropped by over ten times in just four months, we were forced to economize as much as we possibly could and to announce a few months’ halt in production,’ the letter says.

Pnevmostroymashina’s management believes the plant has a chance to restore its financial stability and, judging by the newspaper message, strongly hopes the foreign banks will support the business.

As a matter of fact, Pnevmostroymashina applied for bankruptcy in the fall of 2009; the court accepted the application and found it well-grounded. As a result, over sixty organizations found themselves on the list of the company’s creditors. Among them were ZAO Raiffeisen-Bank Austria’s Ural subsidiary, ZAO KAB Bank Société Générale Vostok, ZAO UniCreditBank, and some others.

The creditors’ claims amounted to scores of millions of rubles in some cases, so experts are not at all sure the foreign banks will be willing to show a lot of compassion for Finpromco and its key enterprise.