Community / Value of SCT investments drops by £23m since start of year
THE VALUE of Shetland Charitable Trust’s (SCT) investments has dropped by around £23 million since the start of the year to just over £460 million.
Chief executive Ann Black said this reflects the “volatility” of the financial market and stressed the need to take a long-term view on investments.
She told a meeting of the trust on Thursday morning that the current value is £463 million.
At the end of December 2025, the value had reached £486.4 million.
Since forming in 1976 with oil funds, SCT has spent more than £350 million in the local community with regular beneficiaries including the recreational and amenity trusts as well as Shetland Arts and care homes.
Its reserves are invested in the financial markets, and its financial plan for 2025 to 2030 assumes a medium-term return on these investments of 7.5 per cent.
There was a 13.9 per cent return on investments in the nine months to the end of December.
But markets entered 2026 with a “cautious tone”, a report to trustees said, “as analysts anticipated ongoing volatility driven by policy uncertainty, particularly in relation to US trade policy and the future path of interest rates”.
The strategy through to 2030 says the trust’s “custodian model” means it spends earnings from the fund and “avoid use of the principal fund”.
“We also aim to maintain the value of the principal fund relative to inflation,” it adds.
“This does set limitations on what we spend year-on-year, but our approach is designed to optimise the value of the fund to Shetland now and in the future.”
A report to trustees also highlighted how the SCT disbursed more than £9 million to local organisations and groups in the nine months to 31 December 2025.
The largest recipient by far is Shetland Recreational Trust (SRT), the charity which runs leisure centres.
The report said that the trust received nearly £3.5 million in the nine months to the end of December.
Prior to Thursday’s meeting a petition was handed over containing more than 4,000 signatures which opposed the recreational trust’s planned closure of the Scalloway swimming pool.
The recreational trust has warned that it would face insolvency if it did not close one of its facilities.
Some members of the ‘Save Scalloway Pool’ campaign group attended the public part of Thursday’s meeting.
SCT chairman Robert Leask said it was “always a pleasure” to welcome members of the public to meetings.
However, trustees spome about the SRT situation during the private part of the meeting.
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