Evgeny Lebedev, proprietor of the Standard, has committed to allocating funds to sustain the newspaper after it suffered nearly £20 million in losses in the year leading up to its transition to a weekly format.

Previously known as the Evening Standard, which had been a daily staple in London for almost two centuries, the publication was rebranded last autumn as a digital-first entity, now accompanied by a weekly print edition titled the London Standard.

According to its most recent financial statements, the Standard experienced a pre-tax loss of £19.6 million for the year ending September 29, a period just prior to its rebranding.

The previous year, the paper reported a loss of £20.6 million, marking total losses approaching £125 million over the past eight years.

Facing years of unsuccessful profitability, the company indicated it “will require additional funding to maintain its operations” between now and April of next year, as noted in the financial reports.

The latest financial shortfalls have been absorbed by the Standard’s ownership group, headed by Lord Lebedev, its primary shareholder. Nonetheless, the publisher stated that the “significant additional” financial support necessary to ensure operations, as projected by its cash flow analysis, has not yet been finalized with its investors.

Furthermore, the company mentioned that Lebedev had submitted a “letter of support,” which management described as an expression of intent to provide ongoing assistance to cover the company’s day-to-day operating expenses during its restructuring phase.

“Although there’s no formal funding agreement established, the directors are optimistic about Lord Evgeny Lebedev’s commitment to offer this backing,” the publisher noted.

During the year ending September, the company secured loans totaling nearly £23 million from its shareholders, up from £21.2 million the previous year. Additionally, it received an extra £6 million in loans since late September.

The Standard entered an agreement with its shareholders in late 2024 stipulating that no interest would accrue on new loans issued after March 31, 2023, while interest would not be charged on loans from 2020 and 2022 from April 1, 2023 onwards.

Following the timeframe covered by the latest accounts, the company has been implementing a restructuring strategy aimed at reducing expenses as it transitions to a weekly print format.

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The Standard encountered difficulties post-pandemic as its model of distributing hundreds of thousands of free newspapers to commuters unraveled. Many office workers have since been spending at least part of the week working remotely, coinciding with the rollout of 5G technology across several London Underground lines and stations.

Lebedev, who was appointed to the House of Lords by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is also the owner of the exclusively digital Independent newspaper.

In January, Lebedev shuttered London Live, the dedicated TV channel for the capital that he owned, after ten years of accumulated losses.