Metro International is moving its international headquarters to Fleet Street; the spiritual home of the British press.
The new offices were previously occupied by Reuters which was the last major news organisation to move away from the ‘street of ink’in 2005.
The world’s first daily paper the Daily Courant began to operate from Fleet Street in the early 18th century. In the 1980s major titles including the Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph and News International began moving to new locations.
Around 70 head office staff will move to the premises at 85 Fleet Street including the new chief executive Per Mikael Jensen, chief operating officer Chris Spalding as well as the global editorial, finance, marketing, research, online and global ad sales departments. Free daily Metro claims to be the largest global newspaper in the world with 23 million readers in 23 countries (it does not operate in the UK).
The company has been located in Mayfair since 1999.
Spalding said: ‘We are excited by the idea of moving such a modern publisher as Metro into the historical heartland of the newspaper industry.
‘In a way this move sees newspapers coming full circle: Metro broke the mould of daily newspaper publishing and now we are back where that mould was originally cast
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