Mine Visit Note: Dundee

EQUINOX PARTNERS - Precious Metals Miners
Site visit—Dundee Precious Metals
April 2019 

Dates April 11-14, 2019 

Mines Visited Krumovgrad and Chelopech
Countries Visited
Bulgaria
Analyst Stephen Saroki 


OVERVIEW

Dundee Precious Metals (DPM Canada) is a gold/copper producer

with two operating mines in Bulgaria and a smelter in Namibia. It has quality mining assets, a solid balance sheet, excellent management, and operates in reasonable jurisdictions. It is an 8% position in the SMAs.

Market Cap $530m USD
Enterprise Value $515m USD
EV/FCF 3.0x 2020 estimate free cash flow
P/NAV (5% discount)
0.5x
Resources 11.6m ounces of gold
EV/Resource
$45 per ounce of gold
Reserves
3.1m ounces of gold
EV/Reserves $170 per ounce of gold
All-in-sustaining cost
$750 per ounce of gold


Thesis

With the addition of its new asset, Krumovgrad, the company will generate $175 million in FCF on a market cap of $530 million. While there will likely be ramp-up issues, just as there are with most mining assets, I expect that the management team will continue to execute just as they have done at their other mine, Chelopech. In addition, it seems that the major issues related to the Tsumeb smelter are in the past: While only generating modest free cash flows (~$10-15 million per year), Tsumeb will no longer be a capex burden. There are also opportunities for Dundee to optimize Tsumeb, allowing it to double or even potentially triple its FCF in the coming years. DPM remains very attractive, and is far too cheap not to own in size. 

Trip summary

The trip was excellent. It started with a visit to Krumograd, including a visit to the integrated waste management facility and a tour of the processing facility. The next day involved a visit to Chelopech, including the smart center, the processing facility, and the underground mine. In the underground mine, there was a demonstration of how the company uses drones to survey stopes. Overall, it was well organized and informative. There was ample access to both senior management and employees at the mines. 

Management and governance

From an operational perspective, Dundee has an excellent team. I was impressed by the quality of operations at both Chelopech and Krumovgrad. The consensus was that Chelopech is one of the most impressive operations in the gold mining sector. As for managements’ ability to allocate capital, that’s another story. The board’s reticence to return capital to shareholders, especially in the form of share repurchases at half of NAV, is disappointing.


Rick Howes, CEO: He is honest and a good mining engineer. He has put together good teams at both Chelopech and Krumovgrad. He is attentive to the operations, but doesn’t micromanage. He is not, however, able to coherently articulate the company’s capital allocation philosophy. He said that he was considering share repurchases at below $2 a share, but otherwise wasn’t considering them despite the fact that the company trades at 3x EV/normalized FCF (including full-year Krumovgrad production). He is good from an operational standpoint and at building mines, but he is clearly not interested in returning capital to shareholders.


David Rae, COO: He is really impressive. He comes from a smelting/processing background. He was a BHP Smelter Manager, and worked as a GM for Falconbridge. He is a trained metallurgist. He has an ability to articulate things in a simple fashion and is forthright. He is very good with his employees, and he’s the type of person that I’d nominate to boards if Dundee was a better capital allocator.


He said a few things that were particularly interesting:


When asked about the company and what it should do, he talked about how they have to acquire an asset. He said that given that one could buy ounces in the ground for $7/oz, they shouldn’t be spending any money on exploration. They should find an attractive asset and use their exploration geologists to drill it up, develop it, and put it into production. Rick disagrees with him on this. But he said that management has a healthy tension where disagreement is allowed.


When I asked him about how he started working for Dundee, he said he was on a motorcycle in Namibia riding past the Tsumeb smelter. He had heard about the smelter from Rick before. When riding past, he called Rick and told him that they shouldn’t buy the smelter. To quote him: “It’s a terrible business. Don’t ever do it.”

Iliya Garkov, VP & GM Bulgaria: He served in the Bulgarian military as a tank commander and still serves as part of the reserves. He runs a tight ship, and also seems to be well liked by those that work for him. It is a good sign that Dundee has allowed a Bulgarian to take as prominent a role. It means that they take their local commitments seriously. According to him, including retirement, Chelopech has zero turnover. He seems to have a very good working relationship with Rae as well.

Zebra Kasete, VP & Managing Director, Tsumeb: Namibian born, Zebra worked for Rio Tinto, Rossing Uranium, and Murowa Diamonds prior to his current tenure at Dundee. He was brought in at Dundee during February of 2016. In his time, the smelter’s performance has really improved. He has professionalized the operation and systematized the approach towards issues in the smelter. 2018 is the first year that the smelter generated positive FCF.


Jurisdiction

Bulgaria, while being good from a rule of law perspective, is very difficult from a permitting perspective. While Dundee has shown an ability to navigate these issues and has an excellent relationship with the governmental authorities, the time required for permitting a project can range from 7-10 years. For context, countries like Australia and Canada have permitting timelines of ~3 years and ~4 years, respectively. Even getting exploration permits in Bulgaria is a chore. The people are very salt of the earth and tend to be hardworking.


Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

DPM’s track record in CSR has been excellent. Virtually all (more than 95%) of their employees are local. While some of their geologists are expats, some of them are also locals. Dundee has shown its commitment to both employ and promote locals, and the locals are very happy with the approach that Dundee has taken. They have also invested in social programs in the local communities. Foremost among these programs is the Private English Language Secondary School (PELSS) in Chelopech that DPM funds. It is one of the top schools in the country. In Tsumeb, the company formed a community trust to fund local education and business initiatives. 


Catalysts

DPM is ramping up Krumovgrad. As it ramps up, the resultant cash flow should rerate the company’s stock. 

This asset seems like a well-oiled operation, sentiment was exceedingly positive. Several on the visit with me suggested that it is one of the best run operations they’ve ever visited. They have implemented the most technologically advanced operations in the mining space. This includes the use of Mine RP software (of which they own 78%).


Mine RP is software that integrates all of the existing, distinct programs that are used in the mining space into a single platform. It is also linked to financial data to optimize operating metrics. While it is clear that they are in the early stages of implementation, they claim that the benefits will be considerable.

Specifically, they mentioned that the Life of Mine plan would be much easier to change. According to Rick, most life of mine plans used to take 6 months to adjust. With the Mine RP system in place, he believes that one could determine most of the effects of a change in Life of Mine plan in just days. In addition, they’d be able to make decisions connected with financial results, which is not commonly what geologists or mine engineers do. In fact, he said that the decisions at a mine are commonly made in a manner that is divorced from the financial consequences, and that Mine RP is going to solve that. He also said that Mine RP technology is in the

process of being implemented by 6 or 7 other companies. It will likely be used by every mine in the world in 10 years. As far as I know, nobody in the world does this but Mine RP. While Mine RP, as a company, is currently just short of breakeven, it is getting to the point where it might start making some money, especially if it is widely adopted. DPM had ~130 companies visit them at Chelopech in 2017 to see the technology in action, and ~80 companies visit them at Chelopech in 2018. They are doing something right at Chelopech, and Mine RP should succeed as a result. 

DPM uses drones to do its surveying work. Applying this to the stopes, they get far more data in a much shorter period of time. It also gives them much more accurate data. I don’t know the cost of this, and it is not clear what the benefits are, and so the cost benefit analysis is not clear yet. What is interesting is that I did get to speak in a bar on the last night with the CEO of the drone company (called Exyn) which runs propriety machine learning. He said that when his company considered the mining space, he interviewed several different mining companies. He was not only particularly impressed by Dundee, but everyone he met in the space indicated that Dundee is far and away the best in terms of technology in the mining space. 


At the visit, we went to the area where they were expanding the decline, and got to see the drill rig they use for putting holes in the wall for dynamite. The process is more sophisticated than one would think. They then took us to see an area where ore was actively being drilled. They then did a demonstration of the drone and how it is used for surveying purposes. We then saw the processing facility, the tailings facility, and the central command/smart center for the mine. 

Most concerning was the tailings facility, which is an upstream configuration. It looks pretty full. They are doing a lift of 10 meters in three stages (4m, 3m, 3m), which is expected to cover them for the next 16 years. Assuming a full conversion of resources, they currently have 12 years of mine life. They do believe they will expand mine life beyond 2029 (the current end of the LOM plan), and potentially beyond 12 years as well. In looking at Chelopech’s exploration prospects, they have no ability to expand at depth. All of their potential new material is coming from adjacent to where they currently mine, which is where the sublevel cave operation used to be. I expect that they will get to 12- 14 years with this material, but I don’t think it will expand much further than that.



Finally, the other really notable thing about the visit was the Smart Center. Dundee has decided to use a rolling average of the KPIs/alerts instead of using the millisecond frequency data. As a result, fewer alerts pop up so the team remains focused. In addition, they have singled out a set of 5 or so important KPIs as primary focal points. 

Krumovgrad 


The Krumovgrad site visit involved a distant view of the tailings/integrated waste management facility followed by a look at the processing facility. We didn’t get to go see the pit because it was raining.


The first thing that sticks out is the small footprint of Krumovgrad; it is on a hill/mountain. While it is a full mine (everything is there), it is very compact. The processing facility is quite vertical. In addition, they have already mined a month’s worth of material. This took up most of the available space.

The Krumovgrad site visit involved a distant view of the tailings/integrated waste management facility followed by a look at the processing facility. We didn’t get to go see the pit because it was raining.

The first thing that sticks out is the small footprint of Krumovgrad; it is on a hill/mountain. While it is a full mine (everything is there), it is very compact. The processing facility is quite vertical. In addition, they have already mined a month’s worth of material. This took up most of the available space.

As good a team as I think Dundee has, I suspect that the ramp will have some issues. First, I think the space will be limiting from an optimization perspective, both in terms of the grade of the ore and the efficiency at which they can move material. Second, the semi-dry stack tailings facility/integrated waste management facility will likely be difficult to manage. I think it is possible to do, but the optimizing of it will involve some trial and error. Finally, as with all processing facilities, I think it will take some time for them to get the expected recoveries, and it may take longer than one expects.

I would have hoped to be able to get a closer look at the tailings/integrated waste management facility along with getting to see the pit. I don’t think they were hiding it, but it would have been good to see the machines at work.


As for exploration at the site, I think that the chances to add significant ounces to the mine are minimal. I’m sure they could probably add 100k ounces here or there, but I don’t expect mine life to be expanded more than a few years. They are very close to a town, which makes permitting, even of exploration, very difficult. They indicated that it takes them ~3 years to get exploration permits, and so they have to decide what they want to drill years in advance. They are good at managing the permitting regime, but it still takes a long time to permit in Bulgaria. 

Tsumeb Smelter 

The smelter is in the best shape it has been since it was purchased by DPM. In 2018, it generated ~$10 million in FCF. It is pushing through ~240k-250k tonnes of concentrate. That is the new material that goes through the mill, the primary feed, and it represents 60% of the new material going through the mill. 40% of the material is secondary feed. This is because material inventory built up historically as they had to shut down the smelter to make improvements. As a result, secondary feed came to make up a larger portion of total feed processed. According to DPM, the secondary feed should only be at 30% (125k tonnes) of the total feed (~420k tonnes). Primary feed should make up 70%, allowing them to process ~292k tonnes. With each tonne generating $400 in revenue with $300 being profit, they can generate another ~$15 million in FCF. In addition, they’ve kept temperatures stable in their furnace, which allows the equipment to last longer. While they have historically had to re-brick their furnace every 18 months, this change has allowed them to re-brick every 24 months. As a result, they should be able to process ~10k more tonnes. At the same margin, this will allow them to generate an extra ~$3 million. So, at ~300k tonnes of throughput of primary material, the smelter should generate ~$30 million. 

David Rae believes that with an extra $40m in capex, they can increase throughput in the mill to 370k tonnes, or a total of ~$50m in FCF from the smelter (~$20m additional). This would be done primarily through the addition of a holding furnace, which keeps the secondary material hot, and reduces the amount of time and energy needed to heat the material mixed with the primary feed. Tsumeb is the only smelter in the world without a furnace.

There are a few issues with this. First, it is not clear that there is any demand for it. Despite the fact that they are the only smelter in the world that processes high arsenic concentrate, there is a simple and cheap alternative for most companies. They have the concentrate processed at smelters in China where it is blended. Second, lots of high arsenic projects, due to the difficulty that arises in processing concentrate, have been discontinued. As a result, very few mines are currently producing high arsenic concentrate. The other issue, given that there is always the Chinese blending alternative, is that they have no pricing power.


According to the company, they will not spend this $40 million until they know that they have the demand. The one thing that they do say is that companies could favor them in the future because they want to know that the arsenic is dealt with correctly, and they know that DPM does that.

As for my assessment, I just think smelting is a bad business. It is high capex in an industry that is very competitive, leading to low margins. It is the opposite of what I look for in a business. While I don’t expect the smelter to be a cash drain, I’m not convinced it will be a real source of cash going forward. 


Exploration

Timok

They’ve had some recent drill holes that are good and outside of their resource. They include 28m at 3.0 g/t Au from 85m, 35m at 2.0 g/t Au from 246m, and 16m at 1.7 g/t from 65 m. It is not clear what will come of these. What is clear is that the 2 million Au oz that they have on the board are low grade.


Sabina

While they aren’t exploring this project, DPM owns 10% of Sabina. Rick said that he thinks Sabina is too big, and would only do it with a JV partner. 


*** END ***


*Figures and statements as of April visit. This is an internal research note written by an analyst employed by Mason Hill Advisors, LLC. It is not intended for distribution. This information was intended exclusively for the person to whom it was delivered and ought not to be distributed further. Opinions are expressed throughout this note as of the date of the note. Opinions can be wrong or can prove to be right. Investment decisions are made in part as a result of mine visits and company discussions, but not exclusively so.

Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Any investment in a fund or managed account entails a risk of loss, including the entire amount invested. Performance is shown net of management fees, performance fee, and expenses, for each series in the consolidated managed account unless otherwise indicated. Account values are presented gross. Index returns adjusted for inception date of accounts. All performance is unaudited and based on valuations prepared by the adviser and is subject to revision. Net exposure includes short position exposure. See the End Notes on the following page for more important information regarding the performance information shown.


End Notes


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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.
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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