Standard owner Evgeny Lebedev has committed to providing funding to keep the newspaper company going after losing nearly £20 million a week.

The paper, formerly Night Standard, was published daily in London for nearly 200 years and was renamed last fall to make it a digital-first publication, supported by a weekly printed version of London Standard.

The standard report said a pre-tax loss of £19.6 million, according to its latest account, which covers the period before the rebranding.

This was a £20.6 million loss a year ago, bringing the total losses in the past eight years to nearly £125 million.

According to the accounts, after years of failure to make money, the company “will need additional funds to continue as a sustained focus.”

The standard owner, led by the largest shareholder, Lebedev, covers the latest losses. However, the publisher said the “significant additional” funds needed to keep operations were not agreed with shareholders based on its cash flow forecast.

It added that Lebedev wrote a “letter of support” and the boss said he was “expressed his willingness to provide ongoing support to the company to allow it to meet its daily capital needs when it reorganized”.

"Although there is no formal funding facility, the directors are confident in the intentions of Lord Evgeny Lebedev," the publisher said.

The company received nearly £23 million in loans during the year ended September, with an increase in loans received a year ago. It has also received a loan of £6 million since late September.

The standard signed an agreement with its shareholders at the end of 2024 that new loans on or after March 31, 2023 should not be paid any interest, and interest will be loaned from April 1, 2020 and April 1, 2022 from April 1, 2023.

As the company covers deadlines since the company has been executing its restructuring plan as it attempts to cut costs in weekly print publications.

The standard struggled after the pandemic as its business model printed hundreds of thousands of free newspapers for commuters. Since then, many office workers have worked for at least a week, while 5G phone signals have been launched on several underground pipelines and stations in London.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was seated in the House of Lords Lebedev also owns a digitally independent newspaper.

Lebedev plugged in in January after a decade of losses.