One of the last national dailies to enter the Slovenian print market has become the latest major player to abandon it. The business paper Finance has published its final print edition, a step the staff describe as a rebirth rather than a death knell.

The last ever print edition of Slovenia's sole business paper was sent to about 3,000 remaining print subscribers and to newsstands on 28 December, ending an era that began in 1992.

As of 1 January Finance will only be available online, while its weekly magazine Manager will continue to appear in paper form on Fridays.

Finance's director and editor-in-chief Peter Frankl says that the move to all digital is a pure business decision 15 years in the making.

According to Frankl, the media market and revenue models have changed significantly; declining advertising revenue for the print edition is the main reason for the decision.

Deputy editor-in-chief Jurij Šimac says that the final call to scrap the print edition had been made over a year ago. He pointed out that more and more readers consume their news online, "which is also reflected in our subscribers, some 80% of which are already digital."

Due to surging energy costs, which affected the costs of print and distribution, the transition occurred slightly faster than first planned. Šimac says investment in digital content will continue and the staff will be expanded rather than reduced.

Finance, which first appeared in 1992 and switched to daily publication in 2001, has around 13,000 subscribers in total and is highly profitable compared to the larger and older newspaper companies in the country.

"The company generates just under €8 million in revenue and around €1 million in profit, and online subscriptions are a very important source of revenue and profit," Frankl says.

The move leaves Slovenia with three serious nationwide dailies still in print: Delo, a broadsheet with national coverage, Dnevnik, which covers national news but has become increasingly focused on the capital Ljubljana, and Večer, which is similar to Dnevnik except that its reporting revolves around eastern Slovenia and the nation's second largest city Maribor in particular.

There are also two daily tabloids, Slovenske Novice and Svet24, and the sports paper EkipaSN.

Finance is the most prominent media player to abandon print since the 2014 shutdown of Žurnal, a freesheet that had been the most widely circulated paper at the time.