Equinox Partners, L.P. - Q1 2014 Letter

Dear Partners and Friends,

PERFORMANCE & PORTFOLIO

Equinox Partners was up +6.0% in the first quarter of 2014 and roughly +16% for the year through June 25.^[1]

Sector Contribution & exposures (YTD June 25)^[2]

Gold & Silver Miners: CApitalizing on the Mother of all imbalances

We have assiduously avoided hyperbole when discussing our investments. But in the rare event that the planet of deeply distressed valuation is aligned with that of unprecedented economics we make an exception—especially as the particular investment in question is near universally loathed by the financial community^[3]. We are, of course, referring to the current alignment of depressed gold and silver mining companies with the “greatest monetary policy accommodation in human history.”^[4] As exceptional as this opportunity is, it is one upon which few investors are prepared to capitalize.

Market Cap per resource oz / gold^[5] Miners’ Price/Cash Flow^[6]

Despite a June rally, gold and silver producers remain deeply depressed in relation to both their current cash flow and their gold and silver resources. While other measures of investors’ outlook for gold and silver prices, such as option volatility, have also traded off over the past three years, it is gold and silver mining stocks that are most clearly reviled. The 60% decline of the HUI gold mining index since the summer of 2011 reflects not just pessimism about the mining companies’ product but also their management, governance, and businesses more generally (see “Gold and Silver Miners”).

While such valuation extremes by themselves can be an indication of a promising investment, today’s discounted mining valuations also coincide with a unique chapter in global monetary policy stimulus. Central banks across the First World have lowered real interest rates to below zero, radically increased excess bank reserves, and promised to maintain this unprecedented monetary stimulus well into the future. In the words of William White, former chief economist for the Bank for International Settlements, “The honest truth is no one has ever seen anything like this. Not even during the Great Depression in the Thirties has monetary policy been this loose… They are making it up as they go along”^[7] We believe, such extreme monetary policy, when combined with steeply discounted mining shares, has created an extraordinary long-term investment opportunity.

Gold and Silver Miners

Gold and silver miners, while up meaningfully this year, continue to reflect a plethora of pessimistic assumptions. Amongst the negative factors embedded in their shares is a near certainty that gold and silver prices will not mount a real, sustained recovery. Under this prevalent and pessimistic assumption, gold and silver mines will never generate acceptable returns on capital employed, and, consequently, should not be owned for anything more than a well-timed trade.

The multiple difficulties of the average mining business in today’s environment are well known and lend credibility to the argument that rising metal prices will not be efficiently translated into mining company profits. For example, over the last decade, rising costs of production and increases in tax rates have substantially reduced the leverage to higher gold prices that investors sought in their ownership of the typical gold mining company. Were these cost trends to continue as gold prices remain flat, gold mining margins would compress further.

While the recent cost pressures were not principally of the miners’ own making, mining company managements have proven more hapless than heroic in response. Rather than tackle rising costs with an increased focus on efficiency, most managements were far too lax for far too long in their approach to operating and capital costs. Worse still, instead of re-engineering and improving their processes, management often addressed shrinking margins and cash flows by issuing equity and high grading their ore bodies. The use of debt to finance acquisitions and costly capacity expansions further reduced the industry’s ability to withstand lower metals prices.

Keenly aware of these aforementioned dynamics and the typical challenges of operating a gold or silver mine, we have concentrated our investments in exceptional assets and managements. For example, amongst our largest holdings are Virginia Mines, a royalty company with a zero cost of production (See Q4 ‘13 letter) and MAG Silver (Q2 ‘12 letter), a high-quality and low-cost asset with royalty-like characteristics.^[8] To get a sense of the robust nature of these projects, in the case of MAG, the company’s joint venture with Fresnillo is projected to generate a 40% after-tax IRR at $20 dollar silver.^[9]

Most mining companies lack Virginia’s and MAG Silver’s economic characteristics and, consequently, have suffered seriously from a combination of rising costs and falling metal prices in recent years. On a positive note, the industry’s struggles have had the benefit of focusing shareholders on sub-par managers. In particular, shareholders have become bolder in demanding management changes. Nearly half of the CEOs of the 30 largest gold and silver mining companies have been replaced in the last three years.^[10]

While we welcome this change and the increased appetite of investors to confront the management in this industry, in our experience, the root of most mining management problems lies at the board, not executive level. And at the board level, the changes remain less than inspiring. Too many board rooms remain clubby with too little concern for minority shareholders and returns.

Understanding and managing these governance problems have been central to our precious metal investment strategy. Over the past three years, we have spent significant time researching the boards of the companies in which we are invested. At MAG Silver we worked to help restructure the board, bringing in two world-class directors. This effort has already borne fruit. The revamped board brought in a new CEO last year and removed a founder with a troublesome conflict of interest. This year, we again took a more active role and helped Kirkland Lake Gold fend off an opportunistic activist looking to flip the company. Specifically, we actively lent our support to the chairman and CEO, who are committed to optimizing this unique, long-lived asset.

“NOt Your Father’s Federal REserve” ^[11]

We have long appreciated the enthusiasm with which central bankers are willing to fight the slightest whiff of deflation. What best distinguishes the current class of central bankers from their predecessors is not their willingness to err on the side of inflation but the absolute magnitude and scope of their activities. The First World’s central banks have been engaged in not just a countercyclical policy but an ongoing stimulus; not just a liquidity injection but an effort to control long-dated bond yields; not just one bout of quantitative easing, but four.

These monetary masters of the universe have no good parallel in history. Their ambitions go well beyond “leaning against the wind.” They are angling for more: a steady annual uptick in prices, financial system stability, and robust economic growth while supporting profligate governments at the same time. And, that’s just their broad macro agenda. Japan’s Kuroda considered offsetting the short-term effects of a sales tax increase. Janet Yellen, whose employment stimulation bias is well known, is targeting stock and bond prices in addition to employment and inflation. The ECB, Europe’s “Whatever it Takes” central bank, has engineered political outcomes in Italy and Greece. In short, an elite class of central bankers is micromanaging developed economies around the world in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Yellen: inflation fighter?

Chicago, March 31: Janet Yellen (second from front left) observes a welder, and during the prior week, spoke with three unemployed Chicago residents. At a Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago conference she remarked: “It is my hope, that the courageous and determined working people I have told you about today, and millions more, will get the chance they deserve to build better lives.” (NY Times)

The Printing press and market distortions

“[T]he US government has a technology, called a printing press… We can conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.”^[12]

—Ben Bernanke

Without question, Bernanke’s ‘government technology’ has successfully inflated a multitude of asset prices. Many bonds, stocks, and works of art trade at historic highs. Spanish and French bonds, for instance, are at 200-year highs while speculative U.S. growth stocks remain a destination of choice for meaningful amounts of central bank largesse. But, it is the high end of the contemporary art market that has posted some of the most eye-popping price increases. In the words of one art dealer, “Prices seem to set the value. Overpaying is almost the best thing you can do…”^[13] From the $142 million ticket on Francis Bacon’s triptych, to Jeff Koons’ $58 million “Balloon Dog” or Barnett Newman’s “Black Fire I” at $84 million, bull market geniuses remain firmly in control of the contemporary art market.

$84,200,000 - SOLD

While the willingness of the super wealthy to spend so extravagantly is worrisome in its own right, this particular distortion of monetary policy is only one of a series of far more serious, though less sensational, distortions that are afflicting the real economy. That such distortions are already present counters the prevailing wisdom that our monetary adventurism will prove costless if the Fed can just extract us from this problem without significant inflation. It is clear to us that our monetary policy has perverted capital allocation decisions throughout the economy. For example, many investment decisions made against a backdrop of zero rates are unlikely to withstand rate normalization. Moreover, the increasing concentration of wealth undermines the distributed decision making that is the genius of the free market system. So perhaps, it’s premature for central bankers to be patting themselves on the back.

Of course, keeping in mind our own fallibility, it is only fair to note that we failed to predict the precipitous rise in the contemporary art market and the historic rally in sovereign debt. In this same vein, our optimism about the future of precious metals prices could be misplaced. The Federal Reserve is slowing its balance sheet expansion and America’s total debt to GDP ratio has declined modestly from its recent peak. While it is theoretically possible that the over-indebted developed world can gradually deleverage without a financial crisis, we don’t think it is likely. Far more likely, in our opinion, are rising inflationary pressures as capacity utilization around the world tightens. With the unprecedented amount of stimulus already in the system, if central banks hesitate in normalizing—or even reversing—their easing policies, a troublesome acceleration of consumer inflation could ensue. We have theorized that the next and potentially explosive phase of the gold bull market could occur when the authorities don’t tighten enough, as opposed to loosen too much.

Conclusion

After half a decade of the most radical monetary experiment of modern times, investors seem to have lost interest in the subject. Complacency rules the day. Hugely unpopular gold and silver mining stocks are sending this message loud and clear. Of course, no one knows exactly how this extraordinary extension of government economic manipulation will end. Will our massive money experiment end in very high inflation as the economic recovery tightens capacity utilization? Will the Fed reverse course, perhaps touching off another financial crisis which could lead to even more easy money policies? Will the Bank of Japan’s actions trump even the Fed’s bold moves? We don’t know. However, both economic theory and the long sweep of financial history suggest that such policies are laden with unresolved consequences—consequences which will ultimately extract a cost that is proportional to their magnitude. We are convinced that the one asset that we can be confident will benefit is the ancient repository of value that is no one else’s liability—precious metals and the cheaply-valued companies that extract them.

Sincerely,

Andrew Ewert

Sean Fieler

Daniel Gittes

William W. Strong

END NOTES

^[1] Returns stated for Equinox Partners, L.P. Returns will differ for Equinox Fund International, Ltd. June performance is an estimate based on intramonth information which is not yet finalized.

^[2] Sector and returns are presented herein on a gross basis and use relevant period P&L and average capital in determining contribution. Cash and equivalents are excluded.

^[3] Celestial metaphors are fine but any suggestion that the position or movement of the planets have an effect on asset prices is just plain crazy.

^[4] W. Ben Hunt, http://www.salientpartners.com/epsilontheory/notes/When%20Does%20The%20Story%20Break.html

^[5] Scotia Bank. Data though May 2014.

^[6] Scotia Bank. Data through May 2014. Prior years use historical gold prices. Future periods use Scotia estimates of $1300 2014, $1400 2014, $1500 2016, and $1300 2017+

^[7] “I see speculative bubbles like 2007”, Finanz und Wirtschaft, April 11, 2014. http://www.fuw.ch/article/i-see-speculative-bubbles-like-in-2007/

^[8] Visit https://www.equinoxpartners.com/letters to view letters since inception.

^[9] Based on internal models and company information.

^[10] Bloomberg

^[11] David Rosenberg

^[12] “Deflation: Making Sure ‘It’ Doesn’t Happen Here,” Governor Ben Bernanke speech at National Economics Club, November 21, 2002

^[13] “Can art really get any more expensive?” http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/13/world/can-art-really-get-any-more-expensive/

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Precious Metals Fund - Q3 2025 Letter

By Kieran Brennan • October 31, 2025

Dear Partners and Friends, PERFORMANCE Equinox Partners Precious Metals Fund, L.P. rose +36.2% in the third quarter of 2025 and is up +90.2% for the year-to-date 2025. By comparison, the Junior Gold Mining Index GDXJ rose +46.6% in the quarter and is up +132.7% for the year-to-date. Exploration stage companies were the best performing segment of the portfolio, appreciating +55.0% in the quarter. The spot gold price rose +18% in the quarter and is up +47% for the year-to-date. The letter that follows provides our thoughts on the outlook for the gold price and implications for the portfolio holdings. gold The gold bull market, initially driven by central bank buying, has evolved into an investor-driven dollar debasement trade. This second phase of the gold bull market is more explosive than the first because it draws on the approximately $470 trillion of the world’s wealth as opposed to the roughly $35 trillion of central bank balance sheets. If President Trump fans the dollar debasement fire by forcing a politicized Fed to cut rates, gold could rapidly displace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. However, if President Trump takes a more nuanced approach to the Fed, gold should still displace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency over time with the competition between gold and the dollar taking longer to play out. Gold investors warning about fiat currency debasement is nothing new. That, after all, is why gold investors own gold in the first place. There’s also nothing new about most American investors ignoring these warnings. The dollar’s relative stability has long made concerns about dollar debasement appear quixotic. Since the early 1980’s, American inflation has been largely tolerable, the dollar has outperformed almost all other fiat currencies, and U.S. government bonds have been the safest asset to own in an economic downturn. The dollar has sloughed off so much criticism for so long that Janet Yellen likely did not imagine the chain of events that freezing Russia’s foreign exchange reserves would set into motion. With confidence in the dollar’s inertia and a bit of hubris, in our opinion, Secretary Yellen engineered the freezing of $300 billion of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves and put the world’s central banks on notice that their use of dollar reserves depends upon the tacit approval of the U.S. Treasury. Foreign governments, shocked by this policy change, sought to reduce their dependence on the U.S. Treasury and doubled their gold purchases to roughly $60-80 billion per year (potentially $100 billion in 2025). This increase in central bank gold demand drove the gold price up over +50% from March 2022 to March 2025. This bull market, in turn, gave gold the additional scale necessary to function as a more viable alternative to the dollar and damaged the dollar’s air of invulnerability. This two-fold outcome is problematic because inertia and a lack of alternatives were fundamental to the dollar’s stability. On the back of gold’s appreciation, long-ignored arguments of gold investors began sounding more plausible. Financial professionals accustomed to deriding gold investors and referring to them as insects began to worry that gold’s price action is telling them something important. Jamie Dimon aptly summed up the change of heart: “This is one of those times where it is semi-rational to own gold.” His comment captures both his continued distaste for gold and his willingness to own it. Despite the broadening acceptance of gold as an investment, markets remain skeptical of the underlying dollar-devaluation narrative. Inflation, a broad measure of the dollar’s strength, is just 2.8%. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yields 4.0%, indicating the bond market’s indifference to the dollar debasement narrative. Furthermore, the decline in the trade weighted dollar has partially reversed since early July. At this moment, the dollar debasement trade appears to be waiting for additional macroeconomic and geopolitical events to play out. Of these, none looms larger than President Trump’s effort to bend the Federal Reserve to his will. In January, the Supreme Court will likely allow President Trump to remove Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, making the selection of the next Fed Chair even more important. If Trump nominates a loyalist like Kevin Hassett who appears more committed to pleasing the President than price stability, we could see broadening concern about the dollar’s store of value and a growing asset allocation into gold. In this hyper-politicized Fed scenario, gold could quickly become a $100 trillion dollar asset and displace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. However, if Trump nominates an institutionalist like Chris Waller, the dollar debasement trade will likely remain in limbo for a while as markets suss out how much control Trump really has over the Fed. Either way, the U.S. bond market will not be allowed to freely adjudicate the outcome at the Fed. We expect both Treasury and Fed to proactively manage the yield curve during the particularly politically sensitive period when the Fed is cutting rates while inflation is above their stated 2% target. Treasury will keep longer-dated bond issuance to a minimum while coercing banks to keep the Treasury market well bid. JP Morgan increased its holdings of Treasuries by $80 billion in the first half of this year, and we expect other banks to follow suit. The Fed, for its part, has announced an end to quantitative tightening and its intention to shift its balance sheet from mortgage-backed securities to Treasuries. Given the likely extent of the coordinated intervention of the Treasury and Fed, the bond market will not be a good indicator of the market’s confidence in Trump’s economic policies. Gold will be. To the extent that investors sense that the bond market is not providing a reliable price signal, they will begin paying more attention to gold. And, should the gold price becomes the accepted indicator of U.S. financial health, the Trump administration will take action to influence it. At the very least, this will entail the Trump administration encouraging other central banks to stop buying gold or even sell gold. But the anti-gold policy options are limitless. Needless to say, the U.S. government pushback on gold will not solve the dollar’s long-term structural problems. Nor will it mark the end of gold’s challenge to the dollar. It will simply mark the next phase of financial repression. Our Gold Mines The second phase of the bull market in gold has been broadly positive for our portfolio, as a portion of the investor money flowing into gold has bid up gold mining equities as well. Where central banks buy the physical gold bullion, private wealth investors allocating to gold will also buy gold mining stocks. The GDXJ Junior Mining Index is up +132.7% for the year-to-date through September 30. Even with this year’s rapid rise in the gold mining portfolio, valuations remain cheap at spot gold prices. Our in-production portfolio trades at a 24.0% IRR as compared to a 23.4% IRR on March 31. The most dramatic mis-valuation among our gold miners continues to be in the pre-production companies. While these equities have appreciated more rapidly than our producing companies for the year-to-date 2025, they began from such a low valuation that even at twice or three times their January price, they are still undervalued. Troilus Gold, a junior gold mining company with an 11.2 million ounces gold-equivalent resource in Quebec, Canada, is a case in point. Troilus Gold shares have more than tripled in 2025, rising from C$0.31 to C$1.35 per share. The company still trades at an IRR of 30%, 0.2x price-to-NAV (using a 10% discount rate), and a price per ounce of recoverable gold of $63. When Troilus goes into commercial production in 2029, we expect it will generate annual net income roughly equal to its current market cap. Troilus historically traded at an extremely low valuation because the market did not believe that the company could finance the project's upfront capital expenditure of $1.3 billion. Throughout 2025, Troilus began addressing these financing concerns by signing an offtake agreement with a European smelter and a related letter of intent for $700 million of debt financing on attractive terms. If Troilus Gold raises the necessary equity and signs a streaming arrangement to fully fund the mine’s construction, we believe the stock will trade much closer to its NAV (using a 10% discount rate and the spot gold price) of $2.5 billion.

Equinox Partners, L.P. - Q3 2025 Letter

By Kieran Brennan • October 30, 2025

Dear Partners and Friends, PERFORMANCE Equinox Partners, L.P. rose +24.5% net of fees in the third quarter and is up +54.4% for the year-to-date 2025. By comparison, the S&P 500 index rose +8.1% in the third quarter and is now up +14.8% for the year-to-date 2025. Our quarterly performance has been almost exclusively driven by our gold and silver miners. In the third quarter, the spot gold price rose +18%, and the fund’s mining portfolio returned +40%. As of this writing, 78% of Equinox Partners’ capital is invested in the gold and silver sector. The letter that follows provides our thoughts on the gold price and our gold mining holdings. Gold The gold bull market, which was initiated by central bank buying, has evolved into an investor-driven dollar debasement trade. This second phase of the gold bull market is more explosive than the first because it draws on the approximately $470 trillion of the world’s wealth as opposed to the roughly $35 trillion of central bank balance sheets. If President Trump fans the dollar debasement fire by forcing a politicized Fed to cut rates, gold could rapidly displace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. However, if President Trump takes a more nuanced approach to the Fed, gold should still displace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency over time with the competition between gold and the dollar taking longer to play out. Gold investors warning about fiat currency debasement is nothing new. That, after all, is why gold investors own gold in the first place. There’s also nothing new about most American investors ignoring these warnings. The dollar’s relative stability has long made concerns about dollar debasement appear quixotic. Since the early 1980’s, American inflation has been largely tolerable, the dollar has outperformed almost all other fiat currencies, and U.S. government bonds have been the safest asset to own in an economic downturn. The dollar has sloughed off so much criticism for so long that Janet Yellen likely did not imagine the chain of events that freezing Russia’s foreign exchange reserves would set into motion. With confidence in the dollar’s inertia and a bit of hubris in our opinion, Secretary Yellen engineered the freezing of $300 billion of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves and put the world’s central banks on notice that their use of dollar reserves depends upon the tacit approval of the U.S. Treasury. Foreign governments shocked by this policy change sought to reduce their dependence on the U.S. Treasury and doubled their gold purchases to roughly $60-80 billion per year (potentially $100 billion in 2025). This increase in central bank gold demand drove the gold price up over +50% from March 2022 to March 2025. This bull market in turn gave gold the additional scale necessary to function as a more viable alternative to the dollar and damaged the dollar’s air of invulnerability. This two-fold outcome is problematic because inertia and a lack of alternatives were fundamental to the dollar’s stability. On the back of gold’s appreciation, long-ignored arguments of gold investors began sounding more plausible. Financial professionals accustomed to deriding gold investors and referring to them as insects began to worry that gold’s price action is telling them something important. Jamie Dimon aptly summed up the change of heart: “This is one of those times where it is semi-rational to own gold.” His comment captures both his continued distaste for gold and his willingness to own it. Despite the broadening acceptance of gold as an investment, markets remain skeptical of the underlying dollar-devaluation narrative. Inflation, a broad measure of the dollar’s strength, is just 2.8%. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yields 4.0%, indicating the bond market’s indifference to the dollar debasement narrative. Furthermore, the decline in the trade weighted dollar has partially reversed since early July. At this moment, the dollar debasement trade appears to be waiting for additional macroeconomic and geopolitical events to play out. Of these, none looms larger than President Trump’s effort to bend the Federal Reserve to his will. In January, the Supreme Court will likely allow President Trump to remove Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook, making the selection of the next Fed Chair even more important. If Trump nominates a loyalist like Kevin Hassett who appears more committed to pleasing the President than price stability, we could see broadening concern about the dollar’s store of value and a growing asset allocation into gold. In this hyper-politicized Fed scenario, gold could quickly become a $100 trillion dollar asset and displace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. However, if Trump nominates an institutionalist like Chris Waller, the dollar debasement trade will likely remain in limbo for a while as markets suss out how much control Trump really has over the Fed. Either way, the U.S. bond market will not be allowed to freely adjudicate the outcome at the Fed. We expect both Treasury and Fed to proactively manage the yield curve during the particularly politically sensitive period when the Fed is cutting rates while inflation is above their stated 2% target. Treasury will keep longer-dated bond issuance to a minimum while coercing banks to keep the Treasury market well bid. JP Morgan increased its holdings of Treasuries by $80 billion in the first half of this year, and we expect other banks to follow suit. The Fed, for its part, has announced an end to quantitative tightening and its intention to shift its balance sheet from mortgage-backed securities to Treasuries. Given the likely extent of the coordinated intervention of the Treasury and Fed, the bond market will not be a good indicator of the market’s confidence in Trump’s economic policies. Gold will be. To the extent that investors sense that the bond market is not providing a reliable price signal, they will begin paying more attention to gold. And, should the gold price becomes the accepted indicator of U.S. financial health, the Trump administration will take action to influence it. At the very least, this will entail the Trump administration encouraging other central banks to stop buying gold or even sell gold. But the anti-gold policy options are limitless. Needless to say, the U.S. government pushback on gold will not solve the dollar’s long-term structural problems. Nor will it mark the end of gold’s challenge to the dollar. It will simply mark the next phase of financial repression. Our Gold Mines The second phase of the bull market in gold has been broadly positive for our portfolio, as a portion of the investor money flowing into gold has bid up gold mining equities as well. Where central banks buy the physical gold bullion, private wealth investors allocating to gold will also buy gold mining stocks. The GDXJ Junior Mining Index is up +131% for the year-to-date through September 30. Even with this year’s rapid rise in the gold mining portfolio, valuations remain cheap at spot gold prices. Our in-production portfolio trades at a 24% IRR as compared to a 25% IRR on March 31. The most dramatic mis-valuation among our gold miners continues to be in the pre-production companies. While these equities have appreciated more rapidly than our producing companies for the year-to-date 2025, they began from such a low valuation that even at twice or three times their January price, they are still undervalued. Troilus Gold, a junior gold mining company with an 11.2 million ounces gold-equivalent resource in Quebec, Canada, is a case in point. Troilus Gold shares have more than tripled in 2025, rising from C$0.31 to C$1.35 per share. The company still trades at an IRR of 30%, 0.2X its NAV (using a 10% discount rate), and a price per ounce of recoverable gold of $63. When Troilus goes into commercial production in 2029, we expect it will generate annual net income roughly equal to its current market cap. Troilus historically traded at an extremely low valuation because the market did not believe that the company could finance the project's upfront capital expenditure of $1.3 billion. Throughout 2025, Troilus began addressing these financing concerns by signing an offtake agreement with a European smelter and a related letter of intent for $700 million of debt financing on attractive terms. If Troilus Gold raises the necessary equity and signs a streaming arrangement to fully fund the mine’s construction, we believe the stock will trade much closer to its NAV (using a 10% discount rate and the spot gold price) of $2.5 billion. New Board Seat at Gran Tierra Energy On September 30, portfolio company Gran Tierra Energy announced that Brad Virbitsky has joined the board on behalf of Equinox Partners. While it is a relatively modest-sized position in the fund, we believe there is significant value to unlock, and we can help realize that value through our participation in the boardroom.

Kuroto Fund Wins 2025 HFM US Global Equity Award

By Kieran Brennan • October 30, 2025

Kuroto Fund Wins HFM 2025 US Performance Award

Kuroto Fund, L.P. - Q3 2025 Letter

By Kieran Brennan • October 30, 2025

Dear Partners and Friends, PERFORMANCE Kuroto Fund, L.P. appreciated +16.6% in the third quarter and is up +51.6% year-to-date 2025. By comparison, the broad MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose +11.0% in the third quarter and is up +28.2% for the year-to-date. Performance in the quarter was driven primarily by our investments in Nigeria, with additional strong contribution from our largest position, MTN Ghana. A breakdown of Kuroto Fund exposures can be found here . Portfolio Changes During the third quarter, we initiated a position in Solidcore Resources, a company described in our February webinar . Solidcore is similar to the oil companies we profiled in our Q2 2025 letter in that it is a competitively advantaged commodity producer. The company’s main asset is a long-lived and low-cost mine, the management team is among the best in the region, and the infrastructure they are building will make them a natural consolidator of regional assets. Given the subsequent increase in commodity prices, we ended up purchasing the bulk of our position at a 40%+ free cash flow yield. Solidcore is now a top 5 position in the fund. We funded our purchase of Solidcore by reducing our Georgia Capital position weighting from 17% to 11% and by selling our stake in a Greek consumer-focused business. In the case of Georgia Capital, while the discount to the sum of the parts value decreased from 50% to a more reasonable 30%, we still see it as a compelling investment opportunity. Georgia Capital’s portfolio of oligopolistic businesses is growing earnings double digits, buying back stock, and trading at a single digit, look-through price-to-earnings multiple. The sale of our Greek investment was driven by stock appreciation combined with a management change that led us to re-underwrite our investment. GHANAIAN AND NIGERIAN MACRO Over the past decade, Nigeria and Ghana have endured a seemingly unending series of self-inflicted macro problems. Inflation increased to over 30% in both countries, and the currencies depreciated 64% and 79%, respectively. Ghana defaulted on its domestic and foreign debt in 2023, and Nigeria imposed onerous capital controls for multiple years. However, 2025 has been a turning point for both countries. For the first time in over a decade, investors in these markets are experiencing macroeconomic tailwinds. In Ghana, since the beginning of the year, the currency has appreciated 43% vs. the U.S. dollar, GDP growth averaged over 6%, the budget has been in primary surplus, inflation declined from 24% to 9%, and debt to GDP declined from 62% to 43%. Ghana’s macro environment has improved due to three factors: One, Ghana’s debt restructuring is mostly finished, and the country now has a much smaller interest expense burden, which should decline further as the central bank lowers rates to be more in line with the decline in inflation. Two, the new government which assumed power in January has cut spending 14% in real terms. Three, the country has been helped by the large increase in the gold price, which is both the country’s largest export and a significant component of Ghanaian central bank reserves. Ghana now has 4.8 months of import cover, half of which is held in gold bullion. Whether Ghana can maintain this strong start to the year is an open question, but the fundamentals are certainly in a better place than they have been in the past decade. In Nigeria, President Tinubu’s bold reforms upon taking office are finally starting to have some effect. In 2023, Tinubu eliminated the local fuel subsidy which consumed about 40% of the government’s annual revenues, floated the currency which resulted in a 68% depreciation, forced a recapitalization of the banking sector, and removed the board of the notoriously corrupt national oil company and replaced them with technocrats who formerly worked at companies like Exxon and Shell. While not perfect, the scale of the reforms is impressive by any standard. A year later, inflation has fallen from over 30% to the high teens and is expected to fall to single digits next year. Economic growth has increased from less than 3% to over 4%. Oil production is up more than 10% and oil theft is down 90%. Importantly, the exchange rate has been stable for a year and anecdotally, we are hearing that conditions on the ground are night and day different, businesses are looking to invest, and banks are willing to lend. We initially invested in Ghana and Nigeria in 2018 with the expectation that both countries would eventually adopt a sane set of macroeconomic policies. While it took longer than we expected, sane policy is gaining traction in both countries, and our superior companies are getting re-rated to more sensible, albeit still very cheap, valuations. In Ghana, our main investment has been in MTN Ghana, which has compounded at approximately 25% in U.S. dollar terms since 2018 despite all the on-the-ground challenges. The stock’s historical return understates our investment performance because we increased our weighting at opportune times. The total contribution to our P&L has been +$17.7 million over that time frame, resulting in a +24.9% cumulative contribution to fund returns. Our Nigerian investment results have also been strong. While our initial entry was poorly timed, we added counter-cyclically, and as a result have generated +$9 million of P&L, contributing a cumulative +15.0% to the fund’s return. Our experience in both markets underscores the importance of our investment strategy of looking at out-of-favor markets to find competitively advantaged, well-run businesses at unusually cheap valuations. NEW BOARD SEAT AT GRAN TIERRA ENERGY On September 30th, portfolio company Gran Tierra Energy announced that Brad Virbitsky has joined its board on our behalf. While it’s a relatively modest position size in the fund, we believe there is significant value to unlock and we can contribute to that process through our participation in the boardroom. Sincerely, Sean Fieler & Brad Virbitsky

Precious Metals Fund - Q2 2025 Letter

By Kieran Brennan • August 1, 2025

Dear Partners and Friends, PERFORMANCE Equinox Partners Precious Metals Fund, L.P. rose +13.2% in the second quarter of 2025 and is up +39.7% for the first half of 2025. By comparison, the Junior Gold Mining Index GDXJ rose +18.7% in the quarter and is up +58.7% for the first half of the year. Our meaningful year-to-date underperformance relative to the GDXJ reflects the continued discount at which our companies trade compared to peers. Specifically, our portfolio of producing companies trades at an average internal rate of return (IRR) of 24%, roughly double the 11.5% IRR of the broad universe of gold miners that BMO covers. the gold mining bull market is young The skepticism that characterizes the gold mining sector stands in sharp contrast to the enthusiasm in the broader stock market. The animal spirits that have propelled popular stocks like Wingstop and Robinhood to an average of nearly 80 times 2025 earnings remain totally absent among gold mining investors. One indication of the sober mood that dominates the gold mining sector is the use of gold price assumptions below spot in net asset value (NAV) calculations. Looking at four important sell-side houses for the sector, their models include an average long-term price assumption of $2,400 per ounce, representing a 28% discount to the quarter-end spot price.

Equinox Partners, L.P. - Q2 2025 Letter

By Kieran Brennan • July 24, 2025

Dear Partners and Friends, PERFORMANCE Equinox Partners, L.P. rose Equinox Partners, L.P. rose +11.6% net of fees in the second quarter and is up +24.1% for the year-to-date 2025. By comparison, the S&P 500 index rebounded +10.9% in the second quarter and is now up +6.2% for the year-to-date 2025. Our portfolio has performed well across the board this year, with our gold miners, oil and gas producers, and emerging market businesses all appreciating. We were particularly gratified by the long-overdue outperformance of several of our earlier stage gold companies in the first half of this year. With markets and complacency on the rise, we think it prudent to address the non-negligible risk of an economic downturn. Beware the Next Recession

Kuroto Fund, L.P. - Q2 2025 Letter

By Kieran Brennan • July 23, 2025

Dear Partners and Friends, PERFORMANCE Kuroto Fund, L.P. appreciated +21.3% in the second quarter and is up +30.1% for the first half of 2025. By comparison, the broad MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose +12% in the second quarter and is up +15.3% for the first half of 2025. Key performance drivers for the fund have been our large position in MTN Ghana, as well as the strong returns from our holdings in Nigeria and the Republic of Georgia. A breakdown of Kuroto Fund exposures can be found here . Despite Kuroto Fund’s outperformance in the first half of the year, our portfolio remains very attractively valued. Given the diversity of business models we own, it is difficult to find metrics that provide an accurate picture of the value and quality of our portfolio in the aggregate. In the absence of an alternative, our portfolio’s weighted average price-to-earnings multiple of 7.3x 2025 earnings, dividend yield of 5.2% and ROE of 24.7% will have to do.

Precious Metals Fund - Q1 2025 Letter

By Dan Donohue • May 1, 2025

Dear Partners and Friends, PERFORMANCE Equinox Partners Precious Metals Fund, L.P. rose +23.4% in the first quarter of 2025. Over the same period the price of gold rose +18.9%. The fund’s performance was driven by strong returns from both the producing and exploration stage companies as gold crossed $3,000 per ounce. Trump's New Economic Policy Trump’s New Economic Policy has roiled markets and bolstered investor gold buying globally. While the violent market gyrations remain a focus for our team, we have also been thinking through the long-term effects of Trump’s policies. In this latter endeavor, Nixon’s 1971 New Economic Policy has proven an invaluable guide. The policy similarities between Nixon’s first term and Trump’s second are striking. Both presidents declared emergencies, raised tariffs, cut spending, reduced foreign aid, blamed foreigners, devalued the dollar , proposed tax cuts, attacked the Federal Reserve chair, and directly managed consumer prices. There are, of course, also meaningful differences. Most notably, Trump has raised tariffs more, devalued the dollar less, and has not imposed formal wage and price controls. Nevertheless, the policy resonance is striking.

Kuroto Fund, L.P. - Q1 2025 Letter

By Kieran Brennan • April 30, 2025

Dear Partners and Friends, PERFORMANCE Kuroto Fund, L.P. appreciated +7.3% in the first quarter of 2025, while the broad MSCI Emerging Markets index rose +3.0%. Kuroto performance for the quarter was driven primarily by the strong performance of our operating companies in Georgia and Ghana. A breakdown of Kuroto Fund exposures can be found here . Returning to Brazil Though the Kuroto Fund didn’t invest outside of Asia until 2014, as a firm we began investing in Brazil in the late 1990s and made our first sizable investment there in 2004. We have followed the market ever since. Given our love for the country of Brazil and admiration for many of the companies there, it has been challenging for us to remain mostly absent from Brazilian capital markets for the past decade. We stayed away for a variety of reasons, but primarily because we didn’t like the valuations on offer. So it is with more than a bit of enthusiasm that we were able to make two substantial investments in Brazil this January, taking our portfolio weighting in the country from 0% to 10%. Brazil remains a macroeconomic and political adventure, but today’s valuations are incredibly attractive. The Brazilian stock market is down over 40% in US dollars over the past 14 years.