The explanation comes from the accounts I linked to which give more details than the pie chart. > If the trading arm is there to make them money then it should

The explanation comes from the accounts I linked to which give more details than the pie chart. > If the trading arm is there to make them money then it should appear under "income", not "expenditure" It does see page 15 (PDF page 17), the foundation lists an income of £71,436,388 from 'Other trading activities', if you follow the note (3) it clarifies that this is entirely from rpi trading. A bunch of money then goes on to expenditure to cover the trading arm's costs. Which are indeed substantial as it's an engineering organization with lots of production to pay for along with staff salaries and other R&D costs, these are broken down in note 6, page 28 (PDF page 30). The profit the trading arm makes then comes back to the foundation which is shown in note 5, page 27 (PDF page 29) as 'other income' So yes it is a little complex, you've got the flow of revenue coming into the foundation, out to trading then back in again but it doesn't look like there's any untoward going on. Simply the charity is taking the strategy of running a profit making company to fund its charitable activities.