Equinox Partners, L.P. - Q3 2018 Letter

Dear Partners and Friends,

PERFORMANCE & PORTFOLIO

Equinox Partners declined -10.1% in the third quarter of 2018. Through October 31, the fund was down -32.6% for the year to date.

[1]

As of October 31, our operating companies were trading at 10.7x estimated ’19 earnings, our mining companies at 4.1x estimated ’19 cash flow, and our energy companies at 4.7x estimated ’19 cash flow. During the third quarter, we purchased two companies in Turkey and sold a global ship brokering company and an Eastern European bank. 

Most since 1999

Equinox is on track to post its worst result in 24 years.  With 25 of our 30 long equity positions down for the year to date, equity markets increasingly remind us of 1999 when we purchased shares in R.J. Reynolds at ~2.5x after-tax, cash earnings. At the time, our investors found it hard to believe that R.J. Reynolds could trade at a ~40% free cash flow yield at the end of a massive, multi-year bull market. But, it did. The tech boom of the late 90s bred indifference to high-quality businesses that weren’t part of the mania. 


It was not just R.J. Reynold’s that was cheap in 1999; our entire portfolio was as hated. Oil traded at a low of $9.68 a barrel, gold traded at a low of $253 per ounce, and emerging markets were coming off a 57% peak-to-trough decline in USD terms. Investors simply could not fathom why they would want to own energy, gold, or emerging markets when they could own the NASDAQ 100 index fund that not only represented the future but also appreciated every year. 


As it turned out, investors’ confidence in the future was mostly justified but their confidence in the predictability of the future was wildly misplaced. Technological change did generate enormous winners, like Amazon, that would soon shrug off their turn-of-the-century correction.  But, for every Amazon, there were several tech companies that would never again come close to their peak valuation. With the stock market more overvalued today than it was in 1999 by some measures (see graph), we suspect that another brutal sorting process is not far off.  As in the past, some of today’s high flyers will undoubtedly be more valuable in a decade, but some of today’s highly-regarded companies will be worth less and some worthless. 


There are, of course, enormous structural differences between 2018 and 1999.  Most obviously, it is not at all clear that the Federal Reserve can once again cut rates and induce a debt-fueled boom as they did when the tech bubble burst in 2000. Less obviously, but perhaps more importantly, it is also not clear that the world’s largest economies will once again choose to work together to stave off a global downturn. In the past, this cooperation entailed unlimited swap lines from the Fed, a collective willingness to not politicize large changes in currency cross rates, and the coordinated leasing and selling of gold.

If a steep decline in financial assets were to happen today, such coordinated action amongst the world’s leading economies would be much harder, if not impossible, to muster. In fact, the last time we endured a financial downturn in the context of such palpable international tensions was the late 1960s. Not coincidently, that was also the last time America ran a series of sizable, late-cycle fiscal deficits during a period of economic growth and low unemployment.

[4]


The breakdown of the London Gold Pool in March 1968 was the clearest sign that the financial status quo would not be preserved. Rather than continuing to lend and sell gold as they had in the past, Pool members were actively redomiciling gold and adding to their reserves as their faith in the sustainability of the Bretton Woods system waned.  After the British government was forced to suspend the London gold market on March 15, 1968 due to massive withdrawals, the Bretton Woods System limped on for another three years, but the unwillingness of the world’s leading economies to cooperate eventually led to the onset of a very dramatic bull market in gold in 1971.


While gold clearly lacks the monetary centrality it had in the Bretton Woods era, the physical dynamics of the gold market remain an important potential flash point when relations amongst countries deteriorate. Gold is a monetary insurance policy that countries buy more of when their faith in the international financial system flags. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that in 2009 central banks became uncoordinated net purchasers of gold for the first time in over forty years, and that the number of countries purchasing gold has increased meaningfully since then. From Hungry to Poland, to Russia, to India, and China, the pattern of behavior is the opposite of what we witnessed at the turn of the century and very similar to the behavior of the late ‘60s. 

In the early 1970s, the unmoored gold price quickly unsettled other commodity markets, most significantly the oil market. Here is where our loose comparison with the late ’60s fails, and we are, consequently, much less bullish on oil prices than we are on the price of gold. A rising gold price today simply does not imply the obvious devaluation of the dollar as it did in the ‘70s. So, while we believe that there should be more of a political premium in the oil price given the rise in geo-political tensions, we do not expect oil prices to follow gold prices upward in the short term.


Not only are gold and energy companies not anticipating an upturn in the price of gold and oil, but the companies are trading at ever-more depressed valuations. The gold miner indices are off ~80% from their 2011 peaks and trading at 15-year lows, while the U.S. and Canadian E&P indices are off 56% and 65% respectively from their mid-2014 peak, and trading at 8-year lows. As value investors, we have become increasingly optimistic about the prospects of our gold miners and E&P companies as their valuations compress. To properly communicate this enthusiasm, we thought it would be useful to highlight two of our current holdings, that while in very different businesses, we believe offer a similar investment opportunity to RJR in 1999.

Dundee precious metals

With its second mine in commissioning this December and no significant capital investment obligations going forward, Dundee is poised to generate $150 million USD in free cash flow per year on average for the next five years. With a market capitalization of $470 million, Dundee trades at a free cash flow yield of 32%. Assuming no multiple expansion, no return on exploration investment, and the deployment of the company’s free cash flow evenly amongst dividends, share repurchases, and exploration, the company would yield 10.6% and shrink its shares outstanding by 10.6% per year. We have no assurance that the board will take this path, but management did make it clear on their most recent quarterly conference call that they are comparing all new investment opportunities against the incredible opportunity to reinvest capital back into their own shares. That’s a 32% current free cash flow hurdle against which new investments must compete for capital.

With its second mine in commissioning this December and no significant capital investment obligations going forward, Dundee is poised to generate $150 million USD in free cash flow per year on average for the next five years. With a market capitalization of $470 million, Dundee trades at a free cash flow yield of 32%. Assuming no multiple expansion, no return on exploration investment, and the deployment of the company’s free cash flow evenly amongst dividends, share repurchases, and exploration, the company would yield 10.6% and shrink its shares outstanding by 10.6% per year. We have no assurance that the board will take this path, but management did make it clear on their most recent quarterly conference call that they are comparing all new investment opportunities against the incredible opportunity to reinvest capital back into their own shares. That’s a 32% current free cash flow hurdle against which new investments must compete for capital.

paramount resources

With double digit production growth and rising mix of higher value liquids, Paramount is poised to grow cash flow from $290 million this year to over $1 billion by 2021. Given Paramount’s past operational disappointments and the current energy pricing differentials in Western Canada, the market remains skeptical of these figures and is pricing Paramount’s stock accordingly.  We, however, think there is good reason to be optimistic. First, we believe that the worst of the operational miscues are behind them.  By partnering with Keyera, one of the top midstream companies in Canada, Paramount has radically reduced their execution risk. In fact, all of Paramount’s incremental production growth for 2019 will be delivered to a plant Keyera is building. Second, with respect to condensate differentials, given that Canada is still a sizable net importer of condensate, we expect the differentials with the US to close quickly. 

Oragization

In September, Arthur Melkonian replaced Massimo Devellis as COO, and our CFO, Denise Alejo, assumed CCO duties. Arthur, who ran our middle office for the past seven years, has hit the ground running and already identified some operational efficiencies. We also recruited two new mining analysts to replace Marco Locascio. Stephen Saroki, a past summer intern, joined us in October, and we expect to add a Canadian mining specialist in January. 


Both Massimo and Marco were long-standing partners, and we wish them the best in their new endeavors. Massimo has taken on an operations role at a multi-family office in New York, and Marco is now running a junior diamond mining company.





Sincerely,


Sean Fieler        Daniel Gittes 


end notes

[1] Sector exposures shown as a percentage of 10.31.18 pre-redemption AUM. Performance contribution derived in US dollars, gross of fees and fund expenses. Interest rate swaps notional value and P&L included in Fixed Income. P&L on cash excluded from the table as are market value exposures for derivatives. Unless otherwise noted, all company data derived from internal analysis, company presentations, or Bloomberg.  All values as of 10.31.18 unless otherwise noted.


[2] E.g., Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2001 Annual Report, pp 4, 113; “Central Bank Liquidity Swaps” <https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_liquidityswaps.htm>.


[3] E.g., Greenspan’s comment that central banks “stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise” <https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/testimony/1998/19980724.htm>; and BIS economist William R. White’s comment, in his opening remarks to the 4th BIS Annual Conference held in February 2006, that one of the ultimate objectives of central bank cooperation is “the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful” <https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap27.pdf>.


[4] In 1968, the US federal government ran a 2.7% budget deficit while unemployment trended downward to 3.4% and US GDP grew 9.8% (source: FRED data)


[5] Central banks became net sellers of gold in 1966 and, by 2008, had sold 28% of the collective gold reserves they held in 1965. Apart from 1998, there was no year between 1966 and 2008 in which central banks collectively increased their gold reserves by more than 1.5%. (Source: World Gold Council data, <https://bit.ly/2PsnLU3>, <https://bit.ly/2K2tBFJ>)


[6] Hungary increased its gold reserves by 10x in October <https://bloom.bg/2CNwdXa>, while Poland’s purchases of gold in July and August are their first since 1998 and, indeed, the first gold purchase by a European central bank this century <https://on.ft.com/2xHXVR9>. Russia has been steadily buying gold while at the same time dramatically reducing its exposure to US debt. This year, India has purchased gold for the first time since 2009 <https://bit.ly/2K0gipj>.


[7] According to World Gold Council data, central banks were net collective sellers of gold from 2000 until 2009 <https://bit.ly/2Dng0HV>.


By Kieran Brennan November 11, 2025
Value Investor Insight Profile with Sean Fieler and Brad Virbitsky
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.
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.
By Kieran Brennan October 30, 2025
Kuroto Fund Wins HFM 2025 US Performance Award
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
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. 
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 
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.
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.
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