Today's investing news updates cover catching up on closed-end and exchange-traded funds, plus news from Brazil, Guinea, Finland, Britain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Israel, India, Mexico, Spain, and Canada.

*Iusacell, the Mexican cellphone firm, is to be acquired from Mexico's TV magnate Ricardo Salinas Pliego's Grupo Televisa (which owns 50% ) by Telefonica of Spain, according to a Spanish newspaper report. Price not given but the leak seems to have come from Spanish banks being asked to finance the deal. Salinas Pliego is the 4^th richest Mexican. This would challenge the 70% dominant Mexican mobile phone operator run by Mexico's richest man, Carlos Slim Helu, America Movil. TEF has about 20% of the Mexican market in its own right and Iusacell about 6% according to Eduardo Garcia of www.sentidocomun.co.mx.

*Bombardier has been been awarded a GBP 1 bn pound contract for the Crossrail trains which will connect Heathrow Airport to Canary Wharf in London, the BBC just announced. BDRAF also annnounced yesterday the first sale of corporate Learjet 75s. Five were bought by fellow Canadian firm London Air Services for hauling up to 8 business travelers more cheaply thanks to fuel efficient and carbon fibers as well as more comfortably than in the earlier Lear 45. Price was not given but this is mostly a prestige deal among Canadians.

*Teva reported Q4 2013 revenues at $5.43 bn up 2.9%. However for 2013 overall, Teva reported essentially flat sales at $20.314 bn vs $20.317 bn in 2012. Its Q4 profit was $380 mn. vs prior year $320 mn, with EPS at 45 cents. For the year EPS was $1.42 vs prior year's 1.32. This beat the average forecast by two cents. It loudly reiterated its upbeat outlook for 2014.

TEVA dependence on Copaxone actually rose 8% in Q4. Copaxone accounted for 21% of sales last year, $4.33 bn, vs 20% or $3.996 bn in 2012. Overall, its former dominant line of generics fell by 5% to $9.906 bn.

Oncology drug Treanda was Teva's third largest seller, up 17% to $117 mn, up 10% in Q4 over Q4 2012. OTC meds lumped together accounted for $1.17 bn, up 24% y/o/y. Another winner seems to be Agilect/Azilect for Parkinson's disease which in Q4 rose 18% to $133 mn.

I think we are seeing some of the impact of Dr. Jeremy Levin's tenure at Teva which ended with his ouster in Oct.

By region the US remains Teva's big market with $2.787 bn of sales, 14% of total but competition for multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone began to hurt in Q4. Europe continues to fall, down 1% and with generics down 5% while specialties sales rose. The rest of the world saw very rapid growth thanks to new ventures in Japan and increased sales in Russia. ROW saw a rise in specialty sales of 36% although overall sales remained flat.

The quarterly dividend was raised 5% to NIS 1.21, about 34 US cents.

*GlaxoSmithKline remains on Deutsche Bank's buy list but its target price was cut of GBP 16.2/sh from 17 after yesterday's report on Q4 and 2013. It cited the 2014-5 drug pipeline for its rating. Here are the 2013 numbers which were not released in time for my Wednesday blog. Sales rose 1% to GBP 26.5 bn ($43 bn) , and profits by 4% to GBP1.122/sh, both on a constant currency basis. Full year profits were GBP 8 bn or $13 bn.

This year GSK will boost its payout (in sterling) by 5% and buy back another GBP 1.5 bn worth of stock. GSK has divested GBP 2.5 bn of assets (like soft drinks Lucozade and Ribena) to focus on pharma and consumer healthcare and achieved costs savings of a further GBP 400 mn without damage to its R&D pipeline which topped GBP 4.5 bn ($6.6 bn).

We already wrote about its forecasts but the drug details are worth mentioning to explain Deutsche's enthusiasm. Glaxo has 5 new drugs coming this year approved by the FDA last year, 2 for respiratory disease, 2 for cancer, and one for HIV. It will have phase III details on 6 more this year and a further 10 by 2015. Next up is albigludine for diabetes. Also coming are two chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma meds; a gene therapy for Wiskoff Aldrich syndrome; a topoisomerase inhibitor; a drug to prevent pre-term labor by pregnant women; a malaria drug; and more.

Of all US FDA approvals last year, GSK accounted for 20%. Its return on R&D investment is now 13% vs only 10% in 2010. Despite its well-known scandal of bribery of Chinese doctors and hospital staff, GSK is keeping up its interest in building up a presence in emerging markets. It raised its interim divvie by a penny to 23 pence.

*BCE adjusted Q4 earnings hit C$540 mn or 70 loony cents/sh, up 16.4% and 16.7% respectively from prior year 65 cents/sh boosted above all by media (cable, satellite, and fiberoptic TV) earnings up by over a third. Wireless earnings from residential customers returned to positive growth in the quarter, up 10.4% thanks to new offerings linking it to other services, and away from landlines, and deals set up to discourage churning.

BCE also offers mobile roaming at low charge to Canadians going to the US, and snowbird destinations like the Caribbean and Bermuda, and Europe, Mexico, China, Turkey, and Australia and New Zealand. Would that US or Euroland telcos followed suit! BCE is moving into new media and away from landlines which is something the others have done, but treating customers well is hard to do outside Canada.

Before adjustment, however, EPS was down 25.6% (the adjustment leaves out the impact of severance or acquisition gains and losses which have not be declared as non-recurring. Moreover revenues failed to meet consensus forecasts. This was because there was a non-cash gain in 2012 Q4 for spectrum transfer to Inukshuk shareholders and benefits it had to pay to Astral pensioners this year after the acquisition.)

BCE upped its dividend 6% to C$2.47/sh per year, starting this quarter. BCE hedges its US$ spending on equipment and services and so do we with our DLR-Toronto ETF. Bell lost its National Hockey League broadcasting rights but renewed those for Canada from the National Football League and Superbowl in both French and English, plus other sports team franchises.

*Cineplex Entertainment (CNPXF, sold) has made a deal with Bank of Nova Scotia which will sponsor its VIP cinemas and have Scotiabank naming rights. VIP cinemas are a way for Canadians to get through the winter: they offer adults-only auditoriums with menus served at your plus and comfortable seat with embedded tabletop, including wine and booze, and reserved seating via a special box office. BNS.

*Chicago Bridge & Iron won a contract to provide pipe fabrication to Dow Chemicals for 5 ethylene and polypropylene production units in Texas and Louisiana. CBI did not give provide price info but it is probably significant. It's Dutch.

*Belgium's Galapagos nv won a 2-yr grant of euros 2.3 mn from the Flanders regional innovative research agency enter to work on fibrosis, a followup to a grant from a cystic fibrosis charity for the same work on the genetic disease. The new grant will be for broader research into variants affecting not just childrens' lungs but also scleroderma and skin fibrosis; kidney, liver, heart, bone marrow, and adult lung versions. The research will be done in Flanders, at the Universities of Leuven (formerly Louvain) and Ghent, and in Brussels

*The attempt by Liberty Global plc to get its clutches on Formula One turns out to have precedent from before it was LBTYA/K. We owned what then was Virgin Media. Virgin's founder, Sir Richard Branson, made an offer to buy into Formula One too, but was rejected.

*Credit Suisse upgraded Reckitt Benckiser to outperform from equal weight. Martin Ferera tipped RBGLY for us. Its target price was raised to GBP 52 from 46.50. Bravo Martin.

*Morgan Stanley (copying JP Morgan of last week) also recommended Vale as a buy citing its cheap price vs Australian rivals. Today one of them, Rio Tinto, which owns half of the jv with VALE developing the huge $20 bn Simandou iron ore deposit in Guinea and a railroad to bring its ore to the world, announced that it is in talks with Middle Eastern and Chinese investors to participate in the operation. The two iron ore giants bought the Simandou site from Israel's Beny Steinmetz's company which may have bribed a former Guinean president to snatch it. It is believed to be the largest untapped iron ore deposit on earth. They are still negotiating over the royalties and payments to go to Conakry but their hand has been strengthened as iron ore prices fell last year.

Even if Vale doesn't itself welcome foreign investors it will gain from them. MS says Vale's return on equity will improve this year to 16%. Part of the gain will come from asset sales of prestige projects which do not fit with iron ore, notably Vale extracting itself from producing potash in Argentina.

*Martin writes about C shares which our closed-end Africa Opportunity Fund (AROFF) may issue.

“They are issued at say $1 per unit and investors decide how much they want to invest. At a date set in the prospectus, the C shares will convert to common shares at net asset value (NAV) of the common. This cannot be known in advance when the prospectus comes out, and it is thus a way to treat shareholders fairly. Nobody loses by either paying too much (new shareholders) or being too diluted (existing shareholders.) The offer period for C shares may be as short as a few weeks. Note that UK CEFs often trade at a discount from NAV.

*Canadian General Investments, CGI-Toronto, closed Jan. at a NAV per share of C$25.71 and a trading price of C$17.65, an extraordinary discount. Its NAV in 2013 rose 17.6%. Its largest holdings are Dollarama Inc, Catamaran Corp, Enbridge Inc, Canadian Pacific Railway, Bank of Montreal, Methanex, Element Financial, Stantec, Royal Bank of Canada, and Rogers Communications. Its top holdings by sector are financials, energy, consumer discretionary, industrial, and materials. We own the US variant which has a similar bargain discount from net value but we didn't gain as much because the loony lost value in 2013. CGRIF.

*Back in the USA Eaton Vance Tax Managed Global Diversified Equity Income Fund, EXG, declared a Jan. dividend of 0.0813 cents/sh which was generated 100% from net investment income. Whatever games have been played in the past to generate return of capital, which is not taxed, have ended.

*Early today both Reuters and Dow Jones posted articles examining Monday's sudden drop in the gold price at the opening of London trading which then reversed quickly. This fed into a parallel down and up movement in our SPDR Gold ETF (GLD) which ended the day up over $2 from Friday's close. What happened? The wire services think a short seller in the metal market had to cover and this triggered a lot of follow-up gold sales trades later unwound. The movements were too fast for human being to have generated; they were electronic. The whipsaw then moved to gold shares.

*There is something to be said for buying physical gold with our advertiser, BullionVault, to avoid such bouncing prices. I paid $1162 per oz of the yellow stuff.

*Jaguar will build its XJ saloon car in India while its CEO is stressing the company's “Britishness." This is a good reason to be glad we sold out of Tata Motors, the Indian company which owns Jag. TTM already built Landrovers in its native land but insists it is “committed to Britain” Yeah, sure.