Our oldest subscriber has just died aged 109.

I first met Irving Kahn when I opened my first brokerage account at Abraham & Co., where my great-uncle Jack Oppenheim, stock market mentor to the German Jews, worked. (Jack had fled Germany with enough money to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and by then had become a US citizen and was allowed to sit in it.)

I was 13 and in what was then called Junior High (now Middle School) and we were being taught about stock investing in our math class. Back then it was legal to open your own stock market account even if you were a kid and didn't have a social security number.

Mr. Kahn asked me if I wanted to buy a stock with a high or a low price-earnings ratio. Since I had no idea what that might mean, I chirped back “high.” I then get a lesson in financial analysis from a master of Ben Graham's value system who had helped him teach and write his Financial Analysis book.

I went back to my class at JHS 52 with a better idea of how to select shares.

Many decades later, after Abraham and Co. was acquired and uncle Jack had died, Mr. Kahn became an early subscriber to my newsletter, for which I was grateful. Since I have a new name by marriage, I didn't tell him that I was the 13-year-old kid who thought you wanted a high p/e ratio, but he figured it out.

He invested a portion of the funds managed by Kahn Brothers, his company, into American Depositary Receipts for at least as long as I have been putting out this newsletter, but of course with extreme care, analysis, and selectivity.

Mr. Kahn was remembered for having shorted high-flying shares in the runup to the 1929 crash, because he could spot the bubble. He liked keeping cash around so he could buy after bubbles burst.

He was also remarkable for being one of 4 Kahn siblings all of whom lived to be over 100 years old, and were studied by the Albert Einstein Medical School of Yeshiva University to try to find out why.

More for paid subscribers follows from Hong Kong, Switzerland, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Canada, Portugal, India, Britain, Singapore, the US, Finland, China, Vietnam, and Japan including two annual reports and some investing advice for Argentinians.

• AIA reported record 2014 results in International Financial Reporting Standards and insurance metrics yesterday mostly in US$. The Value of New Business rose 24% to $1.845 bn on which its margin hit 49.1%. Its annualized new premium business grew 11% during the year to $3.7 bn.

This produced after tax profits of $2.9 bn, up 16% y/y, or 24.31 cents/sh. Net profits rose 22% to $3.45 bn.

AIA (HK:1299)(AAIGF) declared a final dividend of 34 HK cents bringing its total payout to 50 HK cents for 2014. This is some 20% over the prior year. (A HK dollar is worth US 0.129, under the fixed exchange rate used.) We do not own AIA for the yield.

The insurance company works in fast-growing regional markets: Hong Kong-Macau, Thailand, Singapore-Brunei, Malaysia, South Korea, and China. Its China operations are the most profitable in terms of value of new business margin, a whopping 83%+. There it is having difficulty selling life insurance because most Chinese use insurance as a form of savings, and because it operates only in 5 regions of the country. It currently has all of 1% of the Chinese life insurance market.

The Hong Kong insurer will work more closely with Citibank (C) to boost its market share in Chinese life insurance, paying the bank more than the $800 mn it handed over in 2014, but it did not give any details of the new arrangements.

• Old Mutual (ODMTY), a UK financial business (including Old Mutual Asset Mgmt now NYSE-listed as OMAM) is South African by origin but now focused on wealth management in Britain and the developed world. Its emerging markets business does very well and should grow and “prosper over the next few years,” wrote Martin Ferera who found the share. Its South African “discount could evaporate”.

Merrill Lynch summed up the 2014 result which came out yesterday: "Beats on every line”.

And in fact each business line beat profit expectations producing overall operating profits of £1.605 mn.

• Emerging markets came in at £617 mn (vs BofAML estimate of £581mn), up 4% YoY on a constant currency basis but up 23% in South African rands (ZAR). EM was boosted by consolidating a sub but mostly from general insurance business recovery.
• OM Wealth operating profits at £227 mn also beat Merrill's estimate (£218mn), up 5% Y/Y as 11% underlying growth offset disposals.
• Part-owed Nedbank profits at £770 mn beat by 2%.
• OMAN-NYSE operating profits at £131 mn expectations by 15 % in the first post-IPO period.

Merrill had only one grouse: non-operating expenses of £140m topped forecast £112 mn.

Net client cashflows of +£11.2 bn topped Merrill forecasts by 5% and consensus by 26% mainly thanks to strong sales. Emerging Markets gross sales at £10.4 bn beat by 7%, boosted by strong growth in corporate gross sales, up 46% Y/Y.

OM Wealth gross sales at £16 bn were 2% ahead. Old Mutual Global Investing (no relation) now manages 12% assets under management (AUM) in house, up nearly 50% from 2013. Merrill expects that eventually AUM can reach 30%. Total group AUM broadly matched consensus at £319.4 bn.

Merrill summed it up: Old Mutual “delivered impressive 2014 results despite a tough macro backdrop” It favors “longer term restructuring of the group into its developed and emerging market components, [to] unlock the significant group discount.”

ODMTY trades at 9.6x 2016 earnings despite group businesses which should command a double-digit p/e ratio, Merrill thinks. “Unwinding the group structure and discount may take 2-3 years, in our view, but investors will be paid to wait.” That refus to the 4.6% 2015 estimated dividend yield.

• Chris Loew writes on his latest ADR pick, Daihatsu: The performance numbers for DHTMY don't look right - showing numbers for DHTMF, an OTC Daihatsu share, but illiquid.

Since we bought, DHTMY came out with Q3 figures (to end Dec) and yesterday, with their January sales. For Q3, there was a y/y fall in operating income of 47%, while net sales fell 6%. January net sales also decreased y-o-y, both in Japan and overseas. Unit sales actually increased in Q3 because of the introduction of new mini-vehicles, especially the new "Wake" model, but production and launch costs cut into profits. Considering that six new models were released , each with costs for tooling changes and advertising campaigns, this is reasonable.

Sales at Daihatsu's Malaysian and Indonesian JVs were each down 5% on slowing economic growth and increased competition. This is worrying, as overseas sales accout for over half of revenue and had been cash cows. Indonesia particularly could be problematic, as car buyers there take out large loans which are harder to get when the economy slows.

• BCE, despite acquisitions, expects to continue to boost earnings this year and I expect another dividend rise. BCE's earnings target is C$3.28-3.38/sh, or growth of about 4.7% from 2014 or more (at the high end). The driver will be revenue growth of 3% plus adjusted underlying earnings growth at a similar level. That means free cashflow can rise as much as 8% and perhaps hit 15%. BCE wrote:

“All our 2015 financial guidance targets reflect continued healthy projected wireless profitability and improving wireline growth as well as the privatization of Bell Aliant. Adjusted EPS and free cash flow [will provide] a strong and stable foundation” for the dividend. That's the good news.

The bad is that this dividend share is trading at a high 16.7x earnings with modest growth.

• Novartis is changing its trial protocol for LCZ695, a chronic heart failure neprilysin-inhibitor scubitril drug, which dramatically cuts down on patient hospital stays and death but may lead to Alzheimer's disease. Scubitril inhibits an enzyme which cuts down sticky beta amyloid brain plaque, a mark of the disease. NVS has now added to the phase III trials tests for cognitive function. Ironically, neprilysin actually helps improve brain function by increasing blood flow. Additional data will help clinicians decide if the Alzheimer risk is too high to use LCZ695 short-term. It may cut the risk of death by about 20% and lead to quicker hospital exit for heart failure patients.

NVS was also suspended from selling all but the most vital drugs in Japan for 15 days next month because it failed to report to officials on the side-effects of many drugs it sold there. These violated regulations although the side-effects were minor and did not require warning labels. NVS officials have apologized to the Japanese regulators but are not committing hari-kiri.

• An update comes from Lisbon over the losses of Banco Espirito Santo (BKESF) and its offshore Rioforte entity which collected our Portugal Telecom cash of euros 896 mn (~$1 bn then). Former PT CEO Zeinal Mohammed Bava testified to a Portuguese Parliamentary investigation that he had no knowledge of the early 2014 Rioforte placement.

He said he was focused on integrating Oi (OIBR), the Brazilian telco, into PT, and was not informed of the Rioforte placement. He said he knew that BES was a key PT shareholder and was the company's banker. He knew that about 70% of PT cash had been deposited with BES for years.

His sworn testimony contradicts the report on the fiasco put out last month by PriceWaterhouseCooper, which called Bava “a knowing party” in the 2014 Rioforte investment.

Others are also filing claim in Lisbon over the BES krach last summer when Rioforte could not repay what it owed PT. Among them is the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, a pension plan which invested $150 mn (US) in BES debt issued in May 2014 with all required government guarantees. It is suing the Bank of Portugal (the CB) for refund. Another claimant is Goldman Sachs International over a euros 834 mn loan it arranged via Oak Finance, the Luxembourg vehicle the NZ pension plan also used to buy BES debt. In Aug., right after the bankruptcy, OF debt was put into the “good bank”, Banco Novo, able to tap healthy BES assets. Then the CB late last year reclassified Goldman to a BES “bad bank” creditor. This was because it owned over 2% of BES capital in the 24 months before the collapse, a rule imposed to stop Espirito Santo family insiders from tapping into Banco Novo. The US bank is being asked to prove that its OF sub was not investing for Goldman. Another court case.

The key issue here is that debt (to PT, NZ, and Goldman) is treated as a form of equity just because there were some shareholding links between the debtor bank and the lender. This means investing in Portuguese stock is dangerous to your health.

Mr Bava may have been careless, but I think his sworn statement will help PT extract more money from the remnants of BES and Rioforte's wide holdings in hotels, real estate, hospitals and clinics, a travel agency, and other assets.

• Abhimanyu Sisodia writes from India on the Finance Ministry projection of 8.1-8.5% growth in the post-Mar 2015-6 fiscal year:

The Bombay Stock exchange logged its biggest rise in 6 weeks today as the survey was issued in Parliament. While recommending large-scale reforms it projected faster growth and an improved fiscal balance. Sesa Sterlite rose more than 4%, helped by expectations that, in tomorrow's budget, the government will help miners by scrapping iron ore export duties. Mining is India's highest taxed sector, with a 30% export duty and an effective tax rate of ~70%. SSLT is up 4.2% in US trading.

• Australian-listed Orocobre is offering local shareholders (but not US owners) the right to buy 15.3 mn new shares at A$2.55/sh. This will increase the number of shares outstanding by 10.41% if all shares are bid for. The A$ stock price is 2.51 so dilution will be moderate. Oz resident shareholders have the right to buy unsubscribed shares but there are no rights we can sell. OROCF is developing lithium mines in Jujuy Province. Argentine readers should buy OROCF to exit its political and debt situation by subscribing before Mar. 5.

• Reckitt Benckiser was upgraded to buy from neutral by Société générale analysts today with a TP of £70 from 52. It was also rated by by Nomura with a TP of £60. However, despite saluting RBGLY's huge cash hoard which can lead to new business acquisitions, HSBC kept it a hold.

• Teva increased the size of the tender offer it made to buy back 4 series of its bonds in Israel to the equivalent of $1.3 bn. This will save the drug company about $170 mn/yr in interest payments. A reverse auction lets its creditors set the price at which they would let TEVA buy back bonds.

• Nokia's (NOK) Chinese cellphone plant, now run by Microsoft (MSFT), is laying off 9000 workers and moving their jobs to Vietnam.