I have been relishing the revelations in recent issues of The New York Timesrevealing the secret foreign buyers of new condominium apartments in skyscraper towers around Central Park. The rich list includes Russian oligarchs, Indian swindlers, politically-connected Malaysians, a whole cast of scamsters seeking a huge rarely-occupied pied-à-terre with drop-dead views. On a clear day you can see the former Borscht Belt, to your north, formally the Catskill Mountains. You can see Atlantic City to the south. But you will never see your neighbors thanks to an intricate system of private elevators. Thanks to shell companies you will be able to avoid taxation as a US resident.

Back in the Mother Country, it is not that easy for controversial or crooked foreigners to load up on real estate. The Qatari royal family just got turned down over its planning application for a palatial residence at the edge of Regent's Park in London.

This came despite the impact of Qatari capital on the British capitol. Qatar has taken control of Canary Wharf; it is unclear if the owner of the iconic buildings in the new London financial center is the royal family or the country, because they don't keep separate accounts. Qataris now also own Harrod's, the top London department store. They also own a stake in Heathrow airport.

Yet the Qatari ruling family was turned down when it sought to build a palace near the London Central Mosque and the US Ambassador's residence. The Crown Estate and Royal Park administrators did not say no; it was the planning chief of the Royal Borough of Camden, NW

The recent real estate boom in both London and New York came from oil money (now harder to come by); Chinese nouveau riche relatives of high officials (now lying low to avoid corruption investigations and execution); and Russian oligarchs (suffering from sanctions and ruble depreciation.) So the impact of the nay-saying council will be felt beyond the deck chairs and the rose gardens it protected.

*Abengoa SA of Spain reported preliminary unaudited 2014 results for its Nasdaq-listed B share ADRs after the market closed yesterday. For the full year it expects to report revenues at euros 7.15 bn, off 1%. But after tax profits are expected to rise by ~24% to euros 125 mn. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (a measure of cashflow) rose 11% year/year. It closed the year with a backlog of around euros 8 bn. It did not sort out Q4 results from the full year.

During 2014 ABGB spun out part of its Abengoa Yield sub. It now expects its stake will be below 50% this mid-year, as a “discontinued operation” and it will no longer consolidated with its parent. It also last year arranged to spin off its Projects Warehouse 1 with EIG Global Energy Partners this March. These moves enabled ABGB to slash its debt by euros 3.35 bn to euros 2.35 bn as of last Dec. 31.

In 2015 ABGB set some ambitious targets. It expects revenues to rise 10-11% to between euros 7.8 and 7.9 bn. It expects to boost EBITDA and free cashflow by 0 to 4% to euros 1.4-1.45 bn. It expects after tax profits to come in up 2.25-2.5% higher than last year, meaning euros 280-320 mn. It also plans to sell other concessional operations and assets during the course of 2015. And most importantly, it will cut its net debt to between euros 1.68 bn and 1.74 bn.

Abengoa also reported that it closed new contracts in Jan. 2015 for a total of euros 1.8 bn. The ABGB share was up 1% on Tuesday. 

*Israeli Compugen rose 7% so far after it reported on Q4 and 2014. Quarterly revenues nearly quadrupled to $6.6 mn because of milestone payments for its immuno-oncology products, expense reimbursements, and non-refundable up-front and capital payments from partners, all allowing CGEN to boost its throughput rates.

Net loss in the quarter was halved to $1.5 mn overall and to minus 3 cents/sh from minus 9 cents in Q4 2013 (There also was a capital increase of $67 mn last Mar. so there are nearly 7 mn more shares out. Its market cap is about $375 mn.)

For the whole year, revenues hit $12.4 mn vs $3.5 mn in 2013 of which $7.2 mn was from upfront and milestone payments, starting with the key one from Bayer Healthcare AG, an arm of the German chemicals giant and Johns Hopkins Med School, a major cancer research center. Net loss in 2013 was $11.1 mn or 23 cents/sh vs $14.1 mn or 36 cents/sh in 2013. All the numbers beat analyst forecasts.

Has CGEN turned the corner? It closed 2014 with $107.7 mn in its capital account, boosted mostly by the capital increase. It can finance a lot more research including at its new San Francisco labs working on monoclonal antibodies. Its cash burn rate is under $12 mn/mo.

CEO Dr Anat Cohen-Dayag stressed that the cash on hand gives CGEN more flexibility “to evaluate with eventual partners various forms of collaborations.” She also said: “Our promary objective is to agressively advance in parallel a number of our early stage immuno-oncology candidates” like CGEN-15027 (found on lung, breast, and liver cancer cells) and CGEN-15049 (which inhibits killer cells which attack tumors, and modulate T-cell activity). These will both be developed further, presumably in house. It is now focused on cancer immune checkpoint proteins. These are expressed by cancer cells, hiding them from chemotherapy and the body's own tumor immune response (killer cells). CGEN now has discovered 11 checkpoint proteins. The stock trades at under 21x the cash it has on hand.

*Irish Alkermes was up 5.6% on Tuesday on its multiple sclerosis drug 8700 hopes (from phase 1 trials) and renewed rumors that it can become a tax inversion takeover candidate. It will report on Friday. Credit Suisse rates it outperform with a target price of $80 or more, mostly over the long-acting Abilify drug for schizophrenia (ariprazol lauroxil) which it says can garner 10% or more of the market once approved. It is now in phase 3 trials. If approved this will generate double digit profits growth for ALKS. The analyst cited also its depression and pain drugs. ALKS was under $50 despite a 5% jump on Tuesday.

*BCE trades at a mere 16x forward earnings and has an opportunity in cellphones up north. While 102% of US-Americans subscribe to cellphone service, only 81% of Canadians do. Its landline business is also strong but there are risks with its quadruple play offerings also of internet and TV which are currently less profitable.

Apart from the collective chorus line of Canadian analyst down-ratings, Canadians are negative on BCE. The main reason for the low p/e is that the Canada Bell Enterprices (as the firm was called) cut its dividend in the run-up to privatization, spooking the market. Since then it has been upping its payout every year. The current forward yield is 4.75% (vs 4.6% last year) why I am sticking with BCE. The other is that I did not take part in the privatization.

*Cameco CCJ faces a US$ 32 mn back-tax demand from our IRS over revenue reported by the Canadian firm's Swiss sub, following a prior claim for up to C$1.5 bn plus penalties from Revenue Canada. The sub sold uranium in Europe during the period before the Fukushima disaster chopped demand.

*Delek Group may raise money in Tel Aviv with an unsecured bond offering in shekalim in two tranches, for 6.9 years and 7.3 years, according to Globes Israel. The bonds would get an A rating and benefit from low interest rates currently applying. But the deal may not be done because of resentment by Israeli underwriters of how top DGRLY shareholder Yitzchak Tshuva left them holding the bag over the collapse of Delek Real Estate in 2011. (We got shares in the sub which were worthless.) Meanwhile rather than imposing price controls or a break-up of the Delek-Noble Energy offshore gas dominant position, Israel is pondering setting maximum prices which can be charged. The two firms own 85% of Leviathan and 67% of the operating Tamar field.

Edison, an Italian firm owned by Electricité de France, is reportedly suspending talks about acquiring two other fields, Tanin and Karish, to satisfy the antitrust authorities in Jerusalem, mainly because of regulatory uncertainty.

*Chinese internet firms play dirty, says Doug Young in www.youngchinabizblog.com which is published in Shanghai. He reports that Tencent's mobile messaging platform, WeChat, is not allowing use of Alipay electronic payments. Alipay belongs to archrival Alibaba.

*Gemalto is buying Swiss Trueb AG's 150-year-old document security business for an undisclosed price. GTOMY of the Netherlands said the deal would be earnings accretive from the start.

*Tuesday was oil-off day so European money is leaving the hydrocarbon sector and flowing into Nokia NOK and Marine Harvest, and other cleaner businesses and out of Ecopetrol EC and Schlumberger SLB.

*CRH was rated “add” by Numis Securities on Tuesday with a 1920 British pence target price. (The Irish firm's shares trade in London as well as Dublin, but the ADRs are based on the Dublin ones.) CRH is buying a pricey bunch of cement assets which are being divested by Holcim and Lafarge in order to merge.

Fund Notes

*I am trying to buy shares of Bill Ack​ma​n's Pershing Square fund listed in Amsterdam now that the stock is “seasoned” under SEC rules but so far not succeeding.

*The continued outflow from funds managed by Pimco has hurt our Allianz stock. AZSEY is the German parent of the fund group which has the best overall 5-yr record according to the Barron's-Lipper analysis published yesterday. The closed-end funds in the group continued to be sold off heavily according to John Cole Scott, who manages money in the sector with Closed-End Fund Advisors of Richmond VA. But the big seller turns out to be Bill Gross and his family: at Pimco Corporate & Income Opportunity Fund (PTY) which sold stock worth $2.46 mn last week; and Pimco Corporate & Income Strategy Fund (PCN) where $115,000 of stock was sold. The Pimco funds could not even work out net asset values in the current Barron's because of the outflow but these CEFs are not in our universe of funds investing outside the US.

Pimco runs 4 world income funds which may also be targets for the “Grexit”: Pimco Dynamic Credit, PCI at a 9.48% discount to NAV; Pimco Dynamic Income, PDI at a 2.41% discount; Pimco Income Opportunity, PKO at a 1.8% discount; and Pimco Strategic Income, RCS at a 13.04% premium. The data was calculated by the CEFA.com website, although it ws not confirmed by the company. The trouble is that while producing yields of 10.3% to 12% the most discounted of the fund, PCI has a short track record (founded only two years ago) and distributes lots of capital gains, taxed. The best track record is by RCS which is at a whopping premium. If you want to speculate I recommend going with PDI which is the oldest of the quartet (founded in 2007) but not much of a bargain.