Media Week last week revealed that Lebedev has held talks to buy The Independent and its sister Sunday title, which would form a three-paper stable with the Standard.
While there are a number of financial and operational issues to be resolved, sources believe an assurance from Lebedev that the two titles will continue to supply editorial content from the UK titles to IN&M's titles in South Africa and the Republic of Ireland is key to the deal.
Paul Gooden, an analyst with Abn Amro, said: "One possibility is that the deal might have been put off because of a licensing deal that IN&M will want to make sure it retains."
In addition, a deal would raise doubt over the future of IN&M's contract with Trinity Mirror through which the latter prints and distributes the Independent titles. The two parties signed a 12-year deal in July 2007, although it is not known how much it is worth. Trinity Mirror declined to comment.
If these issues can be overcome - along with a commitment from Lebedev to take on the paper's losses - then a deal will by struck, driven by "a desire by Lebedev to build a newspaper franchise", according to Gerry Hennigan, an analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers.
Some sources expect that Lebedev would strip out costs from editorial, back-office and management, but run the Standard and Independent commercial teams as separate entities.
One senior executive at a rival newspaper believes that, despite cost pressures, DMGT never entertained merging the operations of the Standard with those of the Mail, adding that "you have to keep the independent nature of the brands. They are two completely different titles and it would represent a difficult sell".
IN&M, the Standard and Lebedev Holdings all declined to comment.
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