Hugo Drayton, the Telegraph's managing director, told newspapers at the weekend that the uncertainty about the Telegraph's future would not get in the way of the launch.
Speaking to The Independent on Sunday, Drayton said: "If the sale process is going to take several months we can not afford to wait." However he stated that no decision had officially yet been taken.
Drayton said it would take four to five weeks to launch a compact version and the proposed £8m budget does not include additional marketing spend. However, any investment would have to be cleared by the newspaper's owner Hollinger International.
Drayton stated that the decision to go tabloid was clearly the right decision for The Independent but that it was "not as clear if it was as good for The Times and even less clear if it is right for the Telegraph".
Drayton was unavailable to comment further on the launch.
Since The Independent reduced its page size in September last year, its circulation has risen at the expense of The Guardian and the Telegraph. In the latest set of ABCs, The Independent posted a 3% rise to 256,378, while The Guardian's circulation went down 3.5% in February to 369,726 and The Daily Telegraph was down 1% to 906,317.
In an interview with the FT's Creative Business supplement two weeks ago, The Guardian's editor Alan Rusbridger said that some kind of new format for the paper could be on the agenda, although it would not be a tabloid format.
The early transition to tabloid comes as an unexpected move, with a fierce bidding war for the Telegraph Group's papers still taking place. Richard Desmond recently announced his withdrawal from the competition as his bid was too low, with Gannett pulling out over the weekend having called the Telegraph price tag "crazy".
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