Sporos Trust Scottish Charity no. SC 032198 Annual Report & Accounts for the year ended 5 April 2022 Trustees. Annual Report For the year ended 5 April 2022 The trustees present their annual rep)rt and financial statements of the trust for the ycar ended 5 April 2022. The financial statements have been pr¢pared in accordance with the accountillg policies set out in Note l thereto, and comply with: the Charities and Trustee Investment (S¢otland) Act 2005" the Charitics Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 a5 amended. Ac£oulltiThg and Reporting by Charities: Statement of RecommetLded Practice (SORP) 2005" and the Financial RetK)rting StsTKlard for STnall¢r Entities (effective April 2008). Objectives & Activities The Dccd of Trnst provides that the Trustees shall hold the Trnst Fulld and the income of it to pay and apply the same to or for the benefit of or in furtherdn¢¢ of such purposes. objects or instructions charitable in law and in SLEch proportions and manner as the Trustees shall thilth fit. In exercising their discrction the Trustees shall give primary consideration to the wishes of those persons who gift or lend funds to the Tn￿( but this proviso shall itnp)se no binding obligation on the Trustecs. The Trustees fulfil the obje¢ts of th¢ ttust by making charttablc donations out of the trnsvs capitsl and income to organisations and individual8 in accotdance with published charity guidelines and Criteria of public benefit. AtL analysis and schedule of donations rnade in the year is included in the a¢cow1￿ with explanatory notes. Organisations which receive donations from the trusi are registered charities which in the opinion of the trustees are doing worthwhile work for th¢ knefit of society, and which generally do not havc a high public profile such as to attract major funding froTll Other souices. A major slice of the trust's grantmaking tends to be targeted at overseas projects, and there are three specific reasons for this: (i) The countries concerned are poorer than the UK (often by a very great margin). and the purchasing power of money invested tends to be many tim¢s greater than in the UL. (li) Those countries a150 have little or nothing in the way of a charitsble sector (an example: one might exp￿1 that CameriK)n as a lornier Frcnch rolony would benefit from Fre[￿h charity, but suprisingly Fronce as a nation has virtually no charitable sector at all). (iii) The UK has cut overseas and in any w this tends to be badly spent or to fall into the wrong hands. Some grants which are for the benefit of charitable organisations are a¢￿allY paid to individuals who work more or less full time as unpaid volunteers for those organisations, and who ther¢fore have to rdise their living expenses through the gifts of supporters and by undertaking other work in their spare time; such grants are disclosed in the accounts as grants to organisations, in accordan¢¢ with the CharitTres SORP, as being primarily for the bcneflt of the organisation rdther than of ihe individuals concerned. Grants are also made to (or for the iKnelit OO individuals WFLO have applied to the trust for funding and who demonstrats genuine needs which arc unlikely ￿ be met otherwise. Achievements Details of charitsble grdnts made in the year are given in the Appendix. Two special area5 of support are described in more detail below. Certain projects SUPPOrted in previous years are wming towards the end of their period of greatest nerf and this is part of they reason why the level of donations w&s lower than the trust's incoming resources. A second pth of the reasoll is explained in the Financial Review below. under the heading Holdings of quoted shares. TraDsylvania College Foundation The remarkable achievemcnts of this Romantan educational clwity are well known through our previous reports. In this period we sent SUPtX)rt tot211ing 80,000 Euros (£67,739) to three connected entities specifically for work with Ukrainian rcfugces who have TK>ured into Romania: Transylvania College itsclf has taken in both childre and teachers (Eur 25000, under Education)" separately the TC Foundation has been providing shelter and other necessities {Eur 30000, under Humanitarian Relief Work)- and the new Wellbeing Ittstitute launched by College Principal RuxaDdrd Mercea with her doctor husband Voicu Mcrcca has bLYn addressing the deep emoiional and psychological needs of traumatized refugees {Eur 2501x1, under Health & Welfare). Page I Institut St Jean, Cameroon higher education project In previous years the trustees tcntatively started to supFx)rt this exc]li￿g new projec¢ and in the cutTent ycar it had sufticient committed funds in place to begin construction of the planned new university campus. The Sporos TrU￿t leLIs rivileged to ￿ part of this retnarkable mcxlel of what is possible in Africa. In November 2019 trus￿) ttav¢lled to Yaoundé. Camer(KTrn'S capilal, for the foundation laying ceremony. By Septcmbci ?O?O construction of the main building was substantially complete. and December 2021 saw thc fist graduation c¢r¢mony at the new campus wh¢r¢ Cameroon's FAlu¢aÈion Minister announced the upgrading of the Institute's otficial status to University. Things can move fast in Afric4 and money invested can go almost a hundred tRmes further than in Euro￿. It is an extraorditwy achicvcment. The project is run under the auspices of the Frères de Saini Jean, a Catholic order knsed in Frnnce with a strong and long-cstabSished prcsencc in Camcroon. where th¢y were already running for many years a large and highly successful secondary school (College Vogt). complemeDfrd latterly by an experimcntal tcrtiary college set up to prcpare Students for life and vocational employment. The demand for and su¢cess of the latter paved the way for the ambitious plan to establish a ￿l￿￿e new university with a strong focus on engineering and t¢chnology. ￿)d parknership links with top instillrtions in Europe such &s the Universits de Technologie ai Troycs. The whole thing was initiated by a dynamic youtig tnan known to the trustees". Nicholas Church went to Cameroon 10 help as an engineer with corLgtruction work at College VogL while there, he realised that mod of the very well edueated pupils of the college were leaving the country to universities abroad and few retllrned to Cameroon- the classic'brain drain- The Institut St Jean projcct was bom to counter this and to invest in the future of this needy country. Th¢r¢ is t(KTr much to frll in this rewrtr. the itistitute's website (https:/linstitutsaintjean.org4 gives a glimpse of th¢ projcc¢ and the trustees will gladly provide further information to those w'anting to know more. Financial review Holdings of quoled sha￿8 The trust rettives from the fouTtding trustces donations of quoted shares annually. Historically the shares have en gold by the trnst within 12-18 months. sales being timed whcn the share price is strong andlor when funds are needed by the tn￿ and sale proceeds 4)plied to charitable donations. Obviously these gifts of Shar￿ havc n¢ver been treated as cndowment funds, but latterly Ibe truSt￿S have initiared a slight policy shift to treat a significant proportion of the gTrfted shores as if they were an expendable unrestricted endowment fund. although strictly thcrc is no "endowmcnt fund- fornially so ¢Alled. Towards thc end of thc prior year, thanks largely to a capital res￿￿c￿rIng by Jardin¢ Mathcson Holdings, the share price reached an all-time high which is reflectcd in the high opening investtnent valuation. This was not tr) last, however. and for most of the year the share price languished IKlow a level at which the irustees felt it g(K)d management to sell. Only one small sale of" 800 shares (£35,235) was made in November 2021 to keep the trust in funds. The share price finished the year 15Q/o down on its opening level. Icading to the substantial unrealised "papcF' loss of £95,764 on revaluation at the year end. But the very low level of sal4 coupled with further gifts of shares by thc Irustces just kforc thc ycar resultcd in a high closing balance of investments. A good rate of dividelld is paid on these. so the inve51rn¢nt incom¢ on the increased shareholding is gradually moving the trnst towards a more internally sustainable footing. Foreigll exchange rale movements The shares held bv th¢ tn￿ are denominatsd in US Dollars. and the trust nomially keeps significant funds in USD in order to minimis¢ for¢ign exchange costs, as key projects supported by the trnst operaie in currencies other thaTh GBP. All transactions and balances in thc accounts are translated to GBP at the relevant dale, and thus the mailltenan¢¢ of a USD batLk account gives rise to a nei gain or loss on currency translation in thc a¢countS, as stated therein. Such'gains" or "k)sses" are. howev¢r, more apparent than real - they are merely b(K)k adjustments arising from (he need to translate foreign currency transactions and balaTWS into GBP for a¢¢ounts purposes. and tittiing differences between inflows and outflows. [continucdl Page 2 Reserves policy It has not hithcrto been the policy of the trustees to hold Si￿lficallt reserves. but to expend incoming resources on haritable donations within a year or two of receipL The trnst currentty has bank standing Orders for grdnts amounting to some £12,000 per annutn for which the trustees aim to maintain suificient ￿$h funds. but has no strict financial obligations for which provision must k made of necessity. Occasions arise. however, when it is not expedient to sell shares gifted to the trust within the year. This gives rise to increased rcscrves in the forni of investsnents. The trusw are emw)wered by the trust deed to accumulate income-with power to resort to that accumulated inwm¢ in future years." The tntstees envisage no difficulty in identifying worthy charitable causes to which any such accumulated rescrves can be opplied in the coming years, and indeed a few have already Ixen identified at the time of this repxt Investment policy The trustees have given due considerdtion to the fact that the trust's invesÉments are not diversified but held in one quoted company, Jardine Matheson Holdings. The facts ate that this cotnpany is already a divetsified conglomerate operating interllationally. with balanced cutrency exposu￿, little debL a high net asset value per share, and a core of highly cash-generative businesses" the shares have a low Bela value (i.e. they are stsble) and over the last 3(F years have outperfornied the Sage of Omaha (Warren Buffet). they atso pay a giK)d and reliablc dividend. It is the considered opinion of the trUst￿S that this shareholding is already ¢ffectively a diversified one, and that there are few bettcr investments for which it could be exchanged. Trustee rernuneratioll and expenses Neither of the trustees received any remuneration or e￿nSeS during the year. Structure and Governance Governing documeDt Founding Deed of Trnst dated 5 September 2(Mll. Appointment oftrustees The trustees hav¢ power to appoint additional trnstees. The Trust tked kns not specify any minimum QT maximum number of trustees. nor any pr(Kedures for their apw)intment or trni of servic¢. NY&ture, purpose and operation of the tn The current ttustees established the trust as a simple grdnt-making tri￿ to facilitate their charitable giving. . The Érust is funded exclusively by the founding trustees. and no funds are either solicited or received frorn third parties. Fun