Equinox Partners, L.P. - Q3 2007 Letter
Dear Partners and Friends,
Unwinding Structured Finance: Yearend Update
CLSA strategist Chris Wood’s prediction of a credit contraction has proven to be amazingly prescient. His latest view coincides closely with Equinox’s and is worth citing at length:
“..the long term challenges presented by the unwinding of the securitization and structured finance model remain formidable. As is now better understood by the consensus, securitization has resulted in a ‘shadow banking system’ globally that has no capital and is barely regulated. The potential contraction of this credit edifice represents a highly deflationary risk for the global economy and one that is likely to lead to massive government intervention before the cycle is fully played out, with most of that intervention centered in the Western world which remains the epicenter of the problem. The intervention will be because pseudo-capitalist welfare states cannot tolerate the deflationary consequences of a securitization unwind……ultimately credit is the key variable in the health of all economies.” (Greed and Fear, Dec. 13, 2007, page 7).
The expansion of the U.S. Federal Home Loan Bank’s balance sheet is a striking example of how “massive” a change is occurring in the U.S. government’s effort to stem the deflationary housing credit cycle.
As bad as the already reported news is, we are confident that these developments have not ‘fully played out.’ To wit, despite the numerous dislocations in credit markets from Scandinavia to Florida, we have yet to hear of any structural problems with the largest source of leverage, the five hundred trillion dollar derivative market. Maybe there just aren’t any?
Style Drift?
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“The importance of being in really great businesses for long stretches, in my view, should not be underestimated. It’s a very important factor.” (Charlie Munger)
Having owned a few mediocre businesses over the years, we have a profound appreciation for Mr. Munger’s point. Yet this appreciation notwithstanding, our portfolio does not consist solely of great businesses. Most notably, we are heavily invested in the gold sector, and, to be clear, gold mining is not a great business. In fact, it is one of the world’s worst businesses. The weighted average return on equity of our holdings in this sector was an abysmal -3% last year. In addition to being low return, gold mines are unpredictable. Capital costs go awry with disturbing frequency, and mines never operate as advertised. Nonetheless, the leverage to the gold price that these mining companies offer should not be underestimated in today’s historic macroeconomic environment.
Asserting that we are living through such an exceptional financial period may strike some as odd. The equity indexes, after all, have had a pretty normal year. A quick look, however, beneath the placid surface of rising stock markets reveals plenty to worry about. It’s not for nothing that the European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve have injected the better part of a trillion USD into the interbank market and accepted less than perfect paper as collateral in doing so. European and American policy makers recognize that America’s extended period of credit fueled, asset driven growth is in jeopardy as is the solvency of the Western world’s highly levered financial system. Recognizing the stakes, policymakers are taking aggressive actions to stave off what is sometimes mistakenly described as a recession. A recession is not the real problem and certainly wouldn’t warrant the series of historic interventions that we’ve seen in the last six months. The real problem is a financial system so geared that it can not cope with a recession. Even with policy makers pulling out all the stops, more turbulence lies ahead. It is in this environment that gold, the antithesis of financial leverage, may well prove to be the ultimate asset of choice.
Gauging gold’s future return potential, the 1980 peak makes good sense as a reference point. Twenty-seven years ago, the viability of world’s financial architecture was in question and gold was an acceptable investment alternative to stocks and bonds. Of course, in 1980 there were far fewer dollars than there are now. Making this necessary adjustment for money supply growth in the interceding years puts the current gold bull market in context. That said, the ultimate extent of gold’s rise may be much different from the last. So much, after all, has changed since gold’s last peak. Just think for a moment about the investing classes of India, China, and the Former Soviet Union; none of them were significant participants in the world economy twenty-seven years ago.
Through the ownership of mining companies, Equinox Partners is paying approximately $100USD per ounce of gold in the ground, a small fraction of gold’s $800USD spot price. There is, of course, a significant expense to mining gold, an expense, which including capital costs and taxes, is currently very close to $700USD per ounce. While the aforementioned leverage of which we are so enamored hasn’t worked well in recent years as the cost of extracting gold has risen almost as fast as the gold price itself, going forward, as the world economy slows, we expect this dynamic to change. Global financial uncertainty should dampen the growth in demand for other mined commodities while at the same time increase in the investment demand for gold. In this environment, we think not only will the $800USD per ounce price of gold increase but the $700USD per ounce extraction cost will flatten out, a prospect that makes the vagaries of the mining business worth the trouble.
Sincerely,
Sean Fieler
William W. Strong











