Stand the costs

"From his residence in Galata he exploited the Capitulations to consolidate a thriving commercial network across the Mediterranean. With Osborne’s and Staper’s financial backing he traded with merchants as far north as Poland and the Baltic, those from Algiers in the west and Syria to the east, as well as Turks, Egyptians, Greeks and Italians, standing the costs of buying cotton, yarn and carpets from Turkey, flax from Egypt and the Black Sea, wine, oil and currants from Crete and Zante, all the time extending his trade in the ubiquitous English kerseys, lead, tin and copper." (Jerry Brotton, This Orient Isle- Elizabethan England and the Islamic World)

What does the emphasized phrase mean?