Equinox Partners, L.P. - Q3 2015 Letter

Dear Partners and Friends,

PERFORMANCE & PORTFOLIO

Equinox Partners fell -25% in the third quarter. After a modest rebound in October and a further drop in November, the fund had declined -23% for the year to date through November 30.^[1]

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With Equinox Partners down a cumulative 50% from its year end 2010 high water mark, we thought it time to review “what we got wrong” as well as, more modestly, “what we got right” over the period. While we made some glaring company-specific errors—Health Care Locums and APR Energy come to mind—the vast majority of our losses have come from our poor assessment of first world central banks and commodity prices.

For years, we have expected first world central banks to lose their credibility as they proved unable to reverse the massive monetary experiment that has characterized their polices since the global financial crisis of 2008. This has not happened. We compounded this error by investing in energy companies with the expectation that oil prices would stay above $80 and natural gas prices would stay above $3. Finally, even though our globally diversified operating businesses have appreciated over the past five years, the aforementioned misjudgments corresponded with a substantial headwind in emerging markets where most of these businesses operate.

While our mistaken assessment of first world central banks and the energy markets have cost us dearly, we are not changing course. To loosely quote Chris Cole of Artemis, central bankers are “trapped” in a “prison of their own design,” unable to “remove extraordinary monetary accommodation without risking a complete collapse of the system…”^[2] Accordingly, we see the Fed’s expected December rate hike as the first step towards the end of the normalization narrative rather than a confirmation of an inevitable return to meaningful positive real rates. As we wrote a year ago in our third quarter 2014 letter:

“…despite the Fed’s protestations to the contrary—a return to meaningful positive interest rates, i.e., historically normal monetary policy, is extraordinarily unlikely. Our basis for this view rests on our confidence that meaningful real rates would put too great a burden on the still over-indebted Developed World economies. Central banks will, therefore, not normalize rates so long as the Developed World’s mountain of debt remains in place.”

Persistent Central Bank Credibility - Our Largest mistake

By keeping rates extremely low, expanding their balance sheets by trillions of dollars, and encouraging growth in global debt, first world central banks have embraced almost the exact set of policies we predicted they would. Perversely, the monetary policy that we thought would produce inflation may have temporarily reinforced deflationary expectations by encouraging an enormous respect for central banks as price fixers. Less controversially and more certainly, a combination of broad-based commodity deflation and a weak global economy has clearly helped anchor inflationary expectations and propped up central bank credibility at a time of truly unprecedented monetary policy.

The persistent credibility of first world central banks has been a disaster for our sovereign bond shorts. Ever since a clear moment of weakness in 2011, first world central banks have successfully used their expert authority and unlimited printing presses to manipulate down government bond yields. Who would have imagined that Mario Draghi could drive down 10-year bond yields in Italy and Spain from roughly 7.5% in the fourth quarter of 2011 to an average of 1.5% today? Similarly, the Bank of Japan has driven rates down across the Japanese yield curve—the yield on the 20-year JGB has declined from a 2011 high of 2.1% to 1% today. Even the Federal Reserve has managed to oversee a decline in interest rates on the 10-year bond, from 3.7% to 2.2%.

Despite their success to date, we still do not believe that central banks can monetize such large amounts of government debt without significant adverse consequences. One adverse consequence already apparent is the extreme short-term focus of the first world central banks and the excessive importance placed on small changes in monetary policy. The Fed’s prospective 25bps rate increase is a case in point. The notion that such a small increase could jeopardize an economy reflects a scary reality that should not inspire confidence. Rather, the incessant handwringing about a quarter point should instead inspire fear that there is so little margin for error.

John Taylor, Stanford economist and plausible successor to Janet Yellen under a Republican administration, recently expressed his exasperation with a data-dependent Fed that struggles to provide an organizing framework for its actions and treats each incremental decision with enormous importance: “No one knows what you’re doing,” Taylor told William Dudley, President of the New York Fed.^[3] Taylor is not alone. St. Louis Fed president Jim Bullard and others inside the Fed have openly admitted that they struggle to explain the current effect of monetary policy on the real economy. Amazingly, this inability to provide a credible framework has not yet cost the Fed its credibility.

the collapse of energy prices - our second big mistake

During 2014 and 2015, we made several trips to Calgary and Texas to meet with energy companies. While the resulting investments have made the E&P sector our single largest loser so far this year, we remain impressed with the prospects of the companies in which we’ve invested. As we have noted in past letters, our companies have incredibly long-lived assets and, at slightly higher energy prices, trade at very attractive multiples to cash flows that can grow for more than a decade.

The poor performance of our E&P investments is largely, but not exclusively, a result of our failure to accurately assess the short-term supply and demand of both oil and gas. Most notably, oil production remains two million barrels per day in oversupply, a majority of which can be attributed to increased output from OPEC. As has been widely reported in the press, rather than serve as swing producer, Saudi Arabia has actually increased production as prices have declined. Given petroleum’s very low price elasticity and the absence of a swing producer, we are now in an era of exaggerated price swings. As painful as the downside has been, it is important to note that this dynamic cuts both ways. The potential upside is equally large. With this in mind, the ongoing declines in production should take on new significance. While it could be another year before those trends overwhelm the current market oversupply, the end result of higher prices appears both inevitable and substantial.

To calculate the unsustainability of today’s prices, marginal replacement cost analysis provides the best framework in our opinion. As the “cost curve” of non-OPEC energy companies makes clear (see below), equilibrium pricing for much of the world’s petroleum production is considerably higher than today’s sub-$40 spot prices. Even accounting for the rapid cost declines experienced by the 5% of global oil output that comes from shale, the average non-OPEC producer is still nowhere close to sustaining production at current energy prices. The specific E&P companies we own, however, are well into the left tail of the graph below and capable, if not comfortable, sustaining production as current prices.

Approaching the same analytical problem from another angle, the massive cut backs in capital expenditure in the E&P sector confirm the unsustainability of global production at current energy prices. In fact, given the huge declines in drilling in North America and cutbacks in capital expenditure globally, we think that production declines could accelerate quickly. And, given project lead times, it will take time to add capacity even at higher prices.

looking forward: "lift off"

For many years Equinox has publically, frequently, and uncompromisingly expressed doubt about central bankers’ resolve to return monetary policy to “normal.” Consider that despite six years of economic expansion real policy rates in the U.S. are still negative. This was in part possible because over the past four years, commodity prices have kept headline inflation down, thereby giving space to an otherwise constrained Fed. The inverse, we note, should also be true. If history is a good guide, a typical rebound in commodity prices would likewise meaningfully boost U.S. inflation. This outcome, we believe, would cost the Fed its credibility if it did nothing or send the economy into recession if the Fed reacted appropriately. While definitely contrarian, it is worthwhile to consider the possibility that commodity prices, now below replacement costs, will rebound and put first world central banks in an impossible situation.

More generally, the Fed is anything but confident in their path to normalization. Yellen is regularly dampening expectations about the rapidity of rate increases. In a recent letter to Ralph Nader she wrote the following: “Most of us expect the pace of that normalization to be gradual.” She then specifically raised the possibility that aggressive rate increases “would undercut the economic expansion, necessitating a lasting return to low interest rates.”

To our mind, more important than the precise timing of rate increases is the Fed’s ultimate policy objective. That an uneven economic recovery and ever increasing debt load make meaningfully positive real rates (i.e., normalization) a near impossibility is the critical point. Yellen herself implicitly admits this truth by never specifying what normalization means. Other Fed officials have chosen to redefine “normal,” thereby making a return to normalcy more achievable and lending credence to our view that the old normal is not possible. In a paper published just this October, John Williams, Yellen’s successor at the San Francisco Fed, advocates a redefinition of normal as zero real rates.^[4]

Rather than redefine normal as zero real rates, we think it is more intellectually honest to admit that the Fed has gone down a path of no return. To quote Chris Wood, “central banks, most importantly the Fed, will not be able to exit from unconventional monetary policy in a benign manner… Such policies will ultimately discredit central banks pursuing unconventional monetary policy.” This outcome, of course, is not something the Fed will admit, but, rather something the market will have to prove. With the Fed finally moving off the zero bound, their largest test yet is fast approaching.

The unsustainability of the current monetary policy and commodity prices bodes well for Equinox’s future. As today’s toxic mix of commodity deflation and unchallenged central bank credibility proves to be temporary, we expect our portfolio to turn around sharply. Specifically, we expect strong emerging markets, higher gold and silver prices, higher first world bond yields, and higher energy prices. In this changing environment, other opportunities may present themselves. For instance, on a short-term basis, U.S. companies will likely face increasing headwinds, making U.S. companies more interesting from a short perspective. On a long-term basis, these headwinds may make U.S. companies more attractive investments as multiples decline.

Sincerely,

Andrew Ewert

Sean Fieler

Daniel Gittes

William W. Strong

END NOTES

^[1] Sector exposures calculated as a percentage of 11.30.15 post-redemption AUM. Therefore, exposure will vary from forthcoming monthly summary which uses 11.30.15 pre-redemption AUM. Performance contribution as stated uses fund’s dollar-weighted gross internal rate-of-return calculations derived from average capital and sector P&L. Sector performance figures derived using monthly performance contribution calculations in US dollars, gross of fees and fund expenses. Interest rate swaps notional value included in Fixed Income exposure and contribution. P&L on cash and U.S. equity options excluded from the table as are market value exposures for derivatives; their combined contribution is -1.5% of average capital.

^[2] Chris Cole, Artemis Capital, October 2015

^[3] Jon Hilsenrath, The Wall Street Journal, The Fed Strives for a Clear Signal on Interest Rates, October 26, 2015.

^[4] Thomas Laubach and John Williams, Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest Redux, October 31, 2015.

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Value Investor Insight Interview October 2025 Issue with Sean and Brad

By Kieran Brennan • November 11, 2025

Value Investor Insight Profile with Sean Fieler and Brad Virbitsky

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.