GCMD: Vessel retrofit fund using pay-as-you-save repayment mechanism closes at USD 35 mil

The Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD), AIM Horizon Investments and their partners on Thursday (20 November) announced the successful closing of the Fund for Energy Efficiency Technologies (FEET), securing total commitments of up to USD 35M, exceeding its initial target.

As the world’s first fund for vessel retrofits leveraging a pay-as-you-save repayment mechanism, FEET directly addresses the long-standing financial barriers hindering the sector’s uptake of vessel retrofits. 

This fund has drawn strong interest from across the maritime value chain, including equipment manufacturers, shipowners, and investors. GCMD provides catalytic equity and is FEET’s appointed decarbonisation advisor. 

FEET is managed by AIM Horizon Investments. Formerly known as FPG AIM Capital, AIM Horizon Investments is a Singapore-based fund manager specialising in maritime and aviation funds for institutional and accredited investors. 

Shareholders of AIM Horizon Investments hold the fund’s commercial equity position, while the Development Bank of Japan Inc. (DBJ) holds the preferred equity position. DBS Bank and ING (which acted as Coordinating Bank) have in principle agreed to provide senior debt financing.

Improving energy efficiency remains one of the most effective strategies to reduce emissions and fuel costs. Energy Efficiency Technologies (EETs), such as wind-assisted propulsion systems (WAPS) and air lubrication systems (ALS), can deliver immediate fuel savings, assisting shipowners to stay competitive amid tightening regional carbon regulations. However, even with a retrofit market valued at over USD 20B, uncertainties around EET performance and access to financing continue to limit uptake.

A primary difficulty restricting adoption is the inherently variable fuel savings from EET retrofits, which depend on operational and environmental factors, such as routing and weather conditions. The lack of standardised methodologies to accurately measure fuel savings further challenges uptake.

This uncertainty has made the return on investment period difficult to predict and has exacerbated the split-incentive issue, where shipowners are expected to invest in retrofits whereas charterers realise savings.

A pay-as-you-save repayment mechanism addresses payback uncertainty with EETs by directly linking repayment to quantified and verified fuel and regulatory savings. Deploying this mechanism requires robust data collection and analysis to isolate the retrofit’s contribution to overall fuel savings.

To this end, GCMD has undertaken EET performance pilots, equipping vessels with additional sensors to acquire high-precision, high-resolution data and applying rigorous data analytics to quantify fuel savings with statistical confidence. As more data is collected across diverse operating and environmental conditions, these datasets can be used to model and predict savings under varying scenarios.

FEET is designed to scale beyond this initial closing, recognising the vast market size and shipping sector’s pressing decarbonisation needs. GCMD and AIM Horizon Investments are targeting to scale the fund to USD 500 million by 2030, capable of supporting around 200 ships.

Professor Lynn Loo, CEO, GCMD, said, “Bringing FEET to life has taken persistence and a willingness from everyone involved to step into the unknown. There was no playbook; our teams were learning as we went. This is exactly the kind of collaborative, problem-solving mindset needed to move the needle on maritime decarbonisation.”

“My hope is that FEET will accelerate the uptake of shipboard energy efficiency solutions and help unlock the scale of action needed to turn the industry’s decarbonisation ambition into tangible progress.”

Note: More details on the Fund for Energy Efficiency Technologies (FEET) can be found here. 

Photo credit: Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation
Published: 21 November, 2025