Equinox Partners, L.P. - Q2 2023 Letter

Dear Partners and Friends,

PERFORMANCE

Equinox Partners declined -1% in the second quarter and was down -5.2% in the first half of 2023.

Visit our performance page to view the Equinox Partners, L.P. fund summary in more detail.

investing through bull and bear markets

We recently reviewed our best ideas over Equinox Partners’ 28-year history. Our long-term performance can be divided into two distinct periods: the fifteen years prior to 2011 and the twelve years since. During the fifteen years from 1994 fund inception to the end of 2010, Equinox compounded at 20.4% per year. Over the past twelve years, Equinox has compounded at 3.0%, bringing our 28-year annualized return after all fees to 12.6%.

Our best investments prior to 2011 are easy to identify. We took meaningful positions in undervalued companies, and they appreciated dramatically. For example, we bought RJR near its lows in 2000. Over the next two and a half years, the stock more than trebled. Even more impressively, Inco Indonesia, which we purchased in early 2003, increased almost fifteen-fold by the fall of 2006. We didn’t trade around these positions, nor did we need to. Our good stock picking was quickly rewarded as capital regularly flowed into the sectors in which we were invested.

Our experience since 2011 has been the exact opposite. Over the last twelve years, gold miners have been in a deep bear market, oil and gas companies declined then recovered, and emerging markets have drifted sideways (see below). As capital has sought returns elsewhere, our best performing investments in this period have not been buy-and-hold. Instead, our returns over the last twelve years have largely come from our ability to add to positions when companies become particularly cheap and exit those positions when they rerate.

To illustrate how we have achieved positive, albeit modest, returns in these challenging markets, we’ve reviewed four investments that have generated a meaningful P&L and made a sizable contribution to our fund’s performance since 2011. We’ve constrained the P&L to the period from January 1, 2011 to June 30^th, 2023, and selected companies that provide a representative sample of the markets in which we’ve been most actively invested. Specifically, we selected two energy companies, a mining company, and an emerging market company for our case studies.

PARAMOUNT RESOURCES

metrics from inception of position

- First bought: March 2013 / Current top 10 holding

- Dollar contribution: $10m

- Fund contribution: +27%

- Return of stock from initial purchase: -24%

- Return of fund from initial purchase: +75%

When we invested in Paramount in 2013, we were already very familiar with the company’s assets and management. We owned the company previously and a colleague had served on the board for years. As a result of our experience and long-standing connection with the company, we had a favorable opinion of Paramount’s assets and the Riddell family, Paramount’s controlling shareholder.

Despite our deep knowledge of the company, our 2013 investment was particularly ill-timed. We failed to appreciate the extent of OPEC’s strategic response to the rapid growth of U.S. shale production. Accordingly, when OPEC let the oil price fall to prevent market share gains by North American shale producers, our investment in Paramount suffered. In addition to our serious miscalculation about the global oil market, we had not grasped the extent to which growing natural gas production in Canada’s Western Sedimentary Basin would overwhelm the takeaway capacity in the region and depress Paramount’s realization on its sale of natural gas.

Recognizing the flaws in our original investment thesis, we reduced our position size by 53% when Paramount’s stock rallied in late 2016 and 2017. This sale reflected our miscalculation about both the oil market and gas markets as well as our frustration with Jim Riddell’s growing pains as a Paramount’s new CEO. While the Riddell family was exceptionally well aligned with shareholders, Jim was still learning how to be an effective executive. The execution of his team at Paramount was clearly not what it needed to be, as the company regularly missed guidance due to operational issues.

By the time the price of oil collapsed in 2020, Jim had grown as a CEO. He remained strategically focused on long-term value but had also put in place a team that could execute at a high level. Confident that Paramount’s assets were being grossly misvalued by the stock market and that oil prices would rebound to more sustainable levels, we increased our shares held by 120%. Our decision to buy Paramount shares near their lows in the spring of 2020 transformed a bad long-term investment into a good one.

CREW ENERGY

metrics from inception of position

- First bought: December 2014 / Current top 10 holding

- Dollar Contribution: $43m

- Fund Contribution: +34%

- Return of stock from initial purchase: -30%

- Return of fund from initial purchase: +111%

Our experience investing in Crew is similar to our decade-long investment in Paramount, only better. Whereas we purchased Paramount prior to the OPEC-induced oil collapse of 2014, we bought Crew afterwards. At the time of our investment in Crew, we were attempting to take advantage of the precipitous declines in oil and gas companies and were particularly attracted to Crew’s superior long-lived assets with sizable natural gas exposure.

For the five years after our initial investment, the natural gas benchmark in Alberta traded at average price of $1.59 USD/MMBtu. The low natural gas price weighed on Crew returns and the company’s internally generated cash flow was insufficient to finance the management team’s organic growth strategy. As a result, Crew accumulated debt as it grew, and the company de-rated from 6.5x EV/DACF at the end of 2013 to 3.7x EV/DACF at the end of 2018. Despite the disappointing returns, we remained invested in Crew believing that gas in Alberta would not stay depressed indefinitely.

Following five years of marginal economics and lackluster returns, Crew’s shares declined another 67% from February 2020 to April 2020 during the 2020 COVID crisis. The market’s longstanding frustration with Crew’s inability to generate free cash flow quickly turned to panic over the company’s leveraged balance sheet. While Crew’s debt load was problematic if the low commodity prices of 2020 persisted for years, the market was missing two important facts. First, and most obviously, gas and oil prices could not remain at unsustainably low prices for very long. Second, and more importantly, Crew’s debt mainly consisted of a $300m bond that had a 2024 maturity. So, while the company’s debt ratios were certainly stressed in 2020, Crew did not have a liquidity problem.

As a result of our conviction about Crew’s liquidity position and the quality of its assets, from August 2019 to April 2020, we increased the quantity of shares held in Crew by 120%. These timely purchases, some of which occurred at stock prices as low as 15 cents CAD per share, transformed an underperforming position into a substantial contributor to the fund’s performance.

MAG SILVER

Metrics from 2011 to exit

- First bought: July 2008 / Last sold: April 2023

- Dollar contribution: $6m

- Fund contribution: +24%

- Return of stock: +9%

- Return of fund: +49%

In 2011, MAG was recovering from a hostile but unsuccessful takeover bid from its joint venture partner, Fresnillo. While we were pleased with the efforts of MAG’s board to prevent a takeover at an unattractive price, we were concerned about the company’s corporate governance. In particular, we were concerned that the board would not be able to move beyond the confrontation and develop a productive relationship with Fresnillo.

We also were concerned about MAG’s strategy of diversifying away from its world-class Juanicipio joint-venture asset through periodic capital raises and exploration spending. As a result, we formed a group called “Mining Investors for Shareholder Value” to improve the board at MAG. Our efforts resulted in the removal of one board member and the addition of Peter Barnes and Rick Clarke to the board in October 2012.

As our confidence in the governance of MAG grew, so too did our position size. We bought shares several times in the three years after the changes to MAG's board, and by the first quarter of 2016, MAG was the largest position in Equinox Partners. Our sales from the 2016-2018 period reflected declines in our assets under management rather than a change in our optimism about MAG. We remained substantial shareholders through the construction of the company’s flagship Juanicipio mine.

Unfortunately, the completion of the Juanicipio mine and resulting free cash flow generation did not deliver the rerating we expected. The problem with our investment thesis was two-fold. First, following the election of Lopez Obrador in 2018, the Mexican government has become increasingly hostile to mine development and imposed an unnecessary one-year delay on the project’s startup after construction was completed. This politically motivated delay sent a signal to the market that President Obrador’s administration did not view the development of this asset favorably. Second, the state of Zacatecas in which the joint venture asset is located, had become increasingly dangerous as local cartels fought for control of the state.

As a result of these two headwinds, we fully exited MAG in the spring of 2023. At the time, the company had completed the construction of the Juanicipio mine, but given the permitting problems in Mexico and security issues in Zacatecas, the company had no realistic prospect of expanding the mine or constructing other mines on the highly prospective joint venture property.

ARAMEX

Metrics from 2011 to exit

- First bought: May 2010 / Last sold: April 2019

- Dollar contribution: $54m

- Fund contribution: +11%

- Return of stock: +212%

- Return of fund: -44%

We first invested in Aramex in May of 2010. Later that year, the Arab Spring broke out. When Aramex shares traded off, we added to our position. The company’s performance in subsequent years made it one of our best performing investments since 2011. By 2013, Aramex was one of our top-five positions.

At the time of initial our investment, Aramex dominated the domestic delivery business in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE with a 50%+ market share in each. The resulting network effects enabled the company to generate a 50% adjusted ROE (ex-cash and goodwill) while undercutting its international competitors on price.

We were particularly impressed with the founder and chair of Aramex, Fadi Ghandour. Fadi had returned to Saudi with a degree from George Washington University and the intention of creating the FedEx of the Middle East. He did exactly that. Not only did Fadi mimic the business model of Fed Ex, but he also incorporated Western notions about business practices into the culture of Aramex. As a result, the company was particularly meritocratic. This internal system of rewarding hard work and competence was obvious throughout the organization, including the C-Suite. Hussein Hachem rose to become the CEO of Aramex in 2013. He had started off as a country manager for Kuwait: a small, bordering on irrelevant, market for Aramex. Hussein proved himself, was repeatedly promoted, and rose to CEO. Given the quality of the business and management, we knew that Aramex should not trade at half the multiple of Fed Ex and UPS.

After the initial phase of the Arab Spring passed, it became clear that neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE were likely to undergo a political revolution similar to what occurred in Tunisia and Egypt. As the political uncertainty receded, the shares of Aramex rerated upwards. Given the quality of the business, management, and growth prospects, we could have owned the company for several more years. Our eventual decision to sell in 2017 was not driven principally by valuation, but by concerns regarding the departure of the CEO and share sales by founder. With the shares at a reasonable multiple and the incoming controlling shareholder not having demonstrated a clear commitment to Western notions of corporate governance, we elected to exit the majority of our position by 2017 and exited entirely in early 2019.

Conclusion

Despite wild fluctuations in the investment environment over the past 28 years, we’ve remained consistent in our approach to better business value investing. Simply put, we seek to own great businesses at low valuations for long periods of time and short overvalued securities facing serious headwinds. Our focus on valuation has prevented us from becoming disoriented during even the most turbulent markets. Our focus on quality ensures that our companies tend to grow their intrinsic value over time.

While our consistent approach has not generated consistent returns, we’ve had excellent performance when commodities and emerging markets have been strong. We’ve even generated very modest, long-term returns when the commodity cycle and emerging markets have gone against us. The combined result is a respectable, but not extraordinary, long-term compounded annual return of +12.6% net of all fees.

The future of financial markets is by definition uncertain. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that we’ve survived twelve extraordinarily challenging years in both commodities and emerging markets. Today’s combination of overextended valuations in large-cap U.S. companies and depressed valuations in our sectors suggest to us that we are on the cusp of a return to a more favorable period for our style of investing. Specifically, our gold miners which trade at a steep discounts to their intrinsic value should rerate dramatically as markets come to appreciate gold’s long-term role as a dollar alternative. Oil and gas companies should also rerate as markets realize that demand for hydrocarbons is not shrinking. And, finally, emerging markets should rerate as dollar denominated stocks and bonds struggle to generate positive returns.

Sincerely,

Equinox Partners

end notes

^[1] Please note that estimated performance has yet to be audited and is subject to revision. Performance figures constitute confidential information and must not be disclosed to third parties. An investor’s performance may differ based on timing of contributions, withdrawals and participation in new issues.

Unless otherwise noted, all company-specific data derived from internal analysis, company presentations, Bloomberg, FactSet or independent sources. Values as of 6.30.23, unless otherwise noted.

This document is not an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy interests in any product and is being provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, tax or investment advice. An offering of interests will be made only by means of a confidential private offering memorandum and only to qualified investors in jurisdictions where permitted by law.

An investment is speculative and involves a high degree of risk. There is no secondary market for the investor’s interests and none is expected to develop and there may be restrictions on transferring interests. The Investment Advisor has total trading authority. Performance results are net of fees and expenses and reflect the reinvestment of dividends, interest and other earnings.

Prior performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Any investment in a fund involves the risk of loss. Performance can be volatile and an investor could lose all or a substantial portion of his or her investment.

The information presented herein is current only as of the particular dates specified for such information, and is subject to change in future periods without notice.

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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.