Equinox Partners Precious Metals, L.P. - Q1 2020 Letter

Dear Partners and Friends,

Top-five holdings Coronavirus update


Pan American Silver: Market Cap: $3.4b / Net Debt: $78m

All of Pan American’s mines except for Timmins (about 6.5% of NAV) have been placed on care & maintenance due to the coronavirus, and the company has pulled production/cost guidance for the year. With net debt of $78m, $240m available on its credit facility, and no significant capex projects planned for this year, Pan American can navigate the current environment without much trouble. The management team has taken a 20% reduction in salary in a show of solidarity with their employees who are currently being paid their base salary. 

 

2019 was a transformative year for Pan American with the closing of the Tahoe transaction and the release of an initial resource for the polymetallic skarn deposit at its La Colorada mine. The company reported an initial inferred resource at La Colorada of ~73 million tonnes, which we value at ~$1B. During Q1 2020, the company released additional drill results for the skarn deposit which were higher grade than the inferred resource, suggesting the skarn will continue to grow and its economics improve. 

 

With a strong balance sheet and nine silver mines in five countries in the Americas, Pan American is well positioned to weather the current storm and benefit from higher silver prices going forward. With over one-third of the world’s silver supply currently offline and investor demand for silver surging, we expect silver prices to rise in the near future.[1]

 

MAG Silver: Market Cap: $741m / Net Cash: $72m

We’ve pushed our estimate of MAG’s production startup out 6+ months, to the first half of 2021. All the equipment necessary for construction is on site and the joint venture’s construction crews were still working as of April 5th. That said, we believe that there is good reason to expect a delay in the construction given the logistical challenges posed by the coronavirus.


The delay in construction will slow the rate at which MAG spends its remaining cash. The company had USD$72m in cash as of Dec 31. We expect MAG will need an additional USD$50m in the next twelve months due to cost overruns plus another year of G&A. MAG will likely borrow these additional funds in the second quarter when its construction timeline is clarified.


Our estimates for the joint venture once it begins production remain unchanged. Tonnage will begin at 4,000 tonnes per day (tpd) and increase to 8,000 tpd within a few years of initial production. At 8,000 tpd, the JV will have a stated mine-life in excess of 12 years and a functional mine-life of much longer. The JV has increased its exploration budget to $5m to build on the promising results in late 2019. We expect the JV will identify another mine on the property in the next few years.


At $18 silver and 4,000 tpd, the JV generates a 44% IRR with a cash cost of ~$5 per ounce of silver. At 8,000 tpd, the project’s IRR rises, the cash cost falls, and MAG’s portion of the JV’s free cash flow tops USD$100m per year and generates a FCF yield in excess of 13%. In the first year of commercial production, we anticipate that the JV’s free cash flow will be reinvested in the expansion to 8,000 tpd. After that expansion, we expect MAG’s board to either reinvest the company’s free cash flow into high-return projects on the JV property or to return the free cash flow to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks.

 

Sandstorm: Market Cap: $982m / Net Debt: $0m

We expect Sandstorm to be profitable in the second quarter despite the halving of its revenue due to mine shutdowns. Within its portfolio, the most notable suspensions and reduced operations are Yamana’s Cerro Morro, Lundin Gold’s Fruta Del Norte, and First Majestic’s Santa Elena. Assuming a 3-month stoppage at the affected mines, 12.5% of Sandstorm’s 2020 attributable production will be shifted to future years. Accordingly, we’ve reduced our estimate of Sandstorm’s free cash flow to just $7m for the quarter.

 

With ~$300m USD in credit lines available and no debt, Standstorm has an opportunity to acquire incremental assets at attractive prices given the current stress in the mining sector. Sandstorm has also just renewed its stock repurchase program. The company repurchased 3.7m of its own shares during the market volatility in March. Either through acquiring royalties at a great price or buying its own undervalued portfolio through share repurchase, Sandstorm has the ability and the willingness to grow value for shareholders. We expect CEO Nolan Watson and his team to consummate at least one opportunistic deal in the next few months.

 

Longer term, we believe that the market is making a mistake by not attributing any value to Sandstorm’s 30% equity stake in the Hod Maden mine in Turkey. When Hod Maden goes into production, currently scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022, we expect the asset to almost double Sandstorm’s cash flows.


Dundee Precious: Market Cap: $680m / Net Cash: $50m

With no large capital requirements, no net debt, and Ada Tepe’s ramp up complete, Dundee Precious Metals is in a very favorable position. We estimate that they exited Q1 with a $50m net cash position. The company’s coronavirus impact has been minimal: both of its mines continue to operate without interruption, while the smelter is still running at ~80% of its current capacity. As a result, the company is on track to generate in excess of $175m in operating cash flow in 2020.


Dundee Precious Metals is also well positioned to acquire another company for a bargain price or to acquire a meaningful amount of its own shares. Either option should benefit shareholders materially. For the share buyback to be effective, the company will need to make a tender offer. They could do so for up to 25% of the shares outstanding and still exit the year in a net cash position. As for acquisitions, the company has been reviewing targets for more than a year. The pricing for such an acquisition is obviously more favorable now. We believe that either buying back stock or making an acquisition would be wise in the current environment. The mistake would be to do neither.


CEO Rick Howes is scheduled to be replaced in May at Dundee’s AGM by COO David Rae. David is sharp, competent, and offers Dundee operational continuity that is especially important in these more uncertain times.


Goldmoney: Market Cap: $130m; Net Cash $51

Goldmoney is one of the obvious beneficiaries from the stress in the physical market for gold and silver. With retail investors unable to purchase physical coins at reasonable premiums, and growing uncertainty surrounding the physical backing of the gold and silver ETFs, Goldmoney’s user-friendly physical storage services for gold and silver bullion around the world are poised to benefit.

 

The Goldmoney’s portfolio consists of four principal businesses: Goldmoney.com, Mene, Schiff Gold, and a gold-lending platform. Goldmoney.com is a precious metals holding platform which allows customers to buy and take delivery of physical metals in secured locations for a lower cost than coins or ETFs. Mene crafts pure 24-karat gold and platinum jewelry that is sold by gram weight with a 20-30% premium. These are, in effect, gold investments in the form of jewelry. Schiff Gold is a U.S. dealer of physical metals in the form of bars, coins and wafers. Finally, Lend & Borrow Trust is an online lending platform that enables peer-to-peer lending and borrowing collateralized by precious metals.


Goldmoney’s CEO, Roy Sebag, who began his carrier at Paypal, has spent the last four years building Goldmoney’s retail transaction platform. While the regulations allow for such a business to work in theory, in practice the regulators in both the U.S. and Canada stopped Roy from developing a gold-transaction business. Accordingly, Goldmoney has stopped investing in its transaction business and refocused on building its gold and silver investment businesses.

 

p/NAV of Gold miners

In the first quarter of 2020, gold prices were up and the price of gold mining companies were down. BMO’s long-term graph of the P/NAV (with a 0% discount rate) for their coverage universe of senior and junior producers provides a sense of how depressed today’s valuations are. As the graph shows, seniors which traded at a ~50% premium to NAV after the lows of 2015, are now trading at a meaningful discount to NAV, while the juniors are trading at an unbelievable 80% discount to NAV. The gold price and mining valuations are clearly disconnected, especially for the juniors that have traded at an increasingly large discount to NAV as the gold price has risen in recent years. The current combination of strong gold prices and low prices for gold mining companies presents an opportunity to invest in the space at a time when its underlying fundamentals are very strong and valuations are low.  

mine closures

“296 mines globally have been temporarily shut down due to the corona virus as of April 6th. 178 (60%) are precious metal operations,” according to fund manager Marin Katusa. These closures have impacted our portfolio unevenly. Broadly speaking, our operations in Australia, Bulgaria, Ontario, Sweden, and West Africa have fared the best so far. We are also witnessing a number of exceptions on a mine-by-mine basis. MAG Silver’s construction site, for example, was still in operation through April 6th, despite the shutdown of most mines in Mexico.


We expect the broad restrictions on mining activity to be lifted in May and June, with the specific timing of the restarts varying from country to country. We are encouraged by the restart of some refining capacity in Switzerland, and we have yet to hear of companies being unable to monetize the metal they produce. 


abnormalities in the gold market

“Some dealers are desperately contacting clients to see if anyone is willing to sell their gold bars and coins, and offering a rare premium over spot prices.”[2] Even at premium prices, there are few sellers of gold and silver coins into the retail channel. This has led to coin shortages and high premiums to spot prices. Current premiums for a one-ounce gold or silver round are over USD$100 for gold and over $5 for silver.[3] These premiums are a result of surging demand, low inventory and supply limitations caused by flight cancellations, and the widespread shutdown of precious metals refiners and mints.


The pricing discrepancies within the institutional precious metals markets are more difficult to explain and more important to understand. The most glaring anomaly is the differential between the COMEX future price and the spot LBMA price. This differential has remained large and volatile in April as other spreads in the capital market have normalized. Accordingly, there is growing speculation that the spread between COMEX gold and LBMA gold signals a deeper problem with the physical backing of these exchanges.


The LBMA issued two press releases last week to diffuse the situation. The market was not reassured: LMBA is trading at a $36 discount to COMEX gold as we write. With the LBMA holding over 8,326 tonnes of gold in storage (USD$407b) as of December 31, 2019,[4] the financial implications of this discount are non-negligible.  Should LBMA gold continue to trade at such a substantial discount to COMEX, the credible allegations that the LBMA failed to fulfill some of its contractual obligations will gain additional credence.[5]


It is worth noting that the GLD and IAU ETFs are dependent on the performance of the LBMA and its sub-custodians. As such, questions about the integrity of the LBMA and its sub-custodians raise important red flags for the $80b+ of capital currently invested in gold ETF’s. Surprisingly, these two ETF continue to experience inflows.  GLD alone has recorded estimated inflows of USD$3.9b since March 23rd.[6] Given the difficulties many have experienced sourcing physical gold recently, we are not alone in publically questioning these ETFs’ ability to successfully translate these massive dollar inflows into physical gold.[7]







Sincerely,


Sean Fieler 

ENDNOTES

[1] Silver Shock Update, Jeff Clark, March 31, 2020



[2] Source: Bloomberg News.


[3] For example, the cheapest silver round at APMEX on April 7th trades at premium of $5.30/oz for a bulk 500-oz order of silver rounds, while their cheapest gold round enjoys a hefty premium of $178.


[4] Source: LBMA.


[5] Source: Numismatic News.


[6] Source: Reuters; Bloomberg data.


[7] Source: Bloomberg News.

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. 
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