Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay lent the company behind The Daily Telegraph £40 million last year to tide the business over after it ran up a loss of £33 million during 2008.

The short-term loan is the third time that the owners of the Telegraph have had to provide finance to the newspaper group since they acquired the daily newspaper and its Sunday sister title in the summer of 2004.

The Barclay twins bought the papers for £665 million, funding the purchase with about £260 million of borrowings. Since the acquisition, the two businessmen have injected £25 million in equity and lent the newspaper group £25 million interest-free.

No reason for the new £40 million shareholder loan is spelt out in accounts published by the Press Acquisitions group that lies behind the Telegraph titles, but a spokesman for the company said that the loan was repaid in April of this year from a £45 million cash reserve.

Press Acquisitions’ loss of £33 million after tax in the year to December 29 takes total losses run up by the company to £79.3 million since the papers were bought from Hollinger International, the company formerly controlled by Lord Black of Crossharbour.

Last year’s deficit came after restructuring charges of £34.4 million stemming from redundancy costs at the newspapers and expenses related to moving the print site from Westferry, in Docklands, to presses owned by News International, parent company of The Times, in Hertfordshire.

The company also had to pay £21.9 million of interest charges on its bank loans of £261.5 million — lending that was originally arranged by HBOS, now part of Lloyds Banking Group. A spokesman for the publisher said that, with the £40 million shareholder loan repaid, the “debt profile remains unchanged from the previous year” — and that the total borrowings would be repaid.

He provided a statement from Press Acquisitions, the company responsible for the bank loans, which said that it was “confident that it will generate sufficient operating profits to meet future interest payments and capital loan repayments as they fall due”.

Trading for all newspaper groups has been difficult since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September of 2008, with most upmarket national newspapers suffering declines in advertising revenue of between 10 per cent and 20 per cent so far in 2009. Advertising represents about half of all publishers’ turnover, with cover-price sales accounting for the rest.

Group turnover was £343.4 million, down from £354.9 million the previous year, excluding the company’s joint-venture printing arrangements, from which it is in the process of exiting. West Ferry is co-owned by Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell — but is up for sale — while a half-share in Trafford Park, a joint venture with Guardian Media Group, was sold during the year at a £6.5 million loss.

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