Which is the Dutch fund that wants to ‘green’… the Greek fleets

Of George Georgiou

A new investment fund has been launched in recent days by Dutch investors, aiming to finance “green” projects in the shipping industry.

In particular, the Amsterdam-based investment company Prow Capital has announced the launch of the Green Shipping Fund, a new € 420 million financing “tool” that will provide shipowners with credit for investing in new ships or in modifications to existing ones, with the aim of reducing the industry’s pollutants.

The head of Prow Capital is Menno van Lacum, who participates in the board of directors of the shipping company Global Ship Lease, interests of the shipowner George Giouroukos. The Spanish bank Banco Santander SA participated in the formation of the fund

Conversations with Greeks

“The Green Shipping Fund is a pan-European initiative. Therefore, the fund is aimed at Greek shipowners, who invest in new generation green ships or in modifications to the current ships of their fleets”, points out to Capital.gr Gust Biesbroeck, who directs the investment department of Prow Capital.

“We are already in contact with a number of Greek shipping companies and as Greece is one of the most important shipping markets in Europe, we expect to gain customers from there,” he notes.

In fact, it makes special mention of the coastal shipping industry. “In the near future, we estimate that carbonization and emission reduction efforts will accelerate in the Greek coastal shipping market, as a result of the forthcoming strict environmental regulations,” he said.

After all, it is known that the fleet of domestic shipping is quite old and companies are looking for funds, through which they will be able to invest in renewal moves.

Although Mr Biesbroeck did not elaborate on the discussions with Greek stakeholders, he said the domestic shipping community “welcomed a new source of funding”, adding that the particular option of funding modifications to existing ships was of particular interest.

“Green” criteria

According to Prow Capital, the ships must exceed the relevant emission regulations to meet the criteria for funding from the “Green Shipping Fund”, while the average loan amount is in the “zone” of 15-50 million euros. The company monitors ship emissions data and reports transparently validated CO2, NOx and SOx reductions.

For example, the focus is on ships burning LNG, LPG, methanol and hydrogen, as well as fully electric or hybrid steamers.

“Stricter lending requirements have made it difficult to access traditional shipping financing sources and the industry needs significant investment to move to zero emissions,” said the initiators of the initiative.

According to estimates by the leading shipping economist, Martin Stopford, the global shipping industry will need investments of more than 3 trillion. over the next thirty years in order to comply with the new environmental regulations.