Pan Mac in 2019 move to Clerkenwell

Pan Macmillan will move from its current location in King's Cross to a "larger and distinctive" new eight-storey headquarters in London's Clerkenwell next year.

The wholesale move of all the publisher's 230 staff from New Wharf Road after 17 years to take over the majority of The Smithson building in Briset Street EC1 has been planned to accommodate the company's expansion, although it has not revealed how many more employees it plans to hire. Pan Mac has signed a new lease for a "larger and distinctive new headquarters which will provide a flexible and empowering environment for its fast-growing business", a company spokesperson said.

Located at 6 Briset Street, the new eight-storey office building comprises 47,905 sq ft and Pan Macmillan has taken the majority of the building, incorporating a ground floor reception and the six upper floors, totalling 36,500 sq ft. The Smithson offers "a variety of distinctive features including 10 roof terraces" and according to its website, is a modern office building constructed in 2000, located within a two minute walk of Farringdon train station. The building has been under refurbishment so that it could be repositioned and re-let ahead of the opening of Crossrail in December. 

The move follows a boom in Pan Macmillan's turnover, which has soared by nearly 40% over the last five years through Nielsen BookScan, and the announcement also coincides with the publisher's 175th birthday this year.

Artistic Clerkenwell is renowned for annual festival Clerkenwell Design Week which turns the streets neighbouring The Smithson into a showcase for leading contemporary art and design each May.

Anthony Forbes Watson, Pan Mac m.d., said: “Our move to an enabling new environment at The Smithson next year is a key strand in our growth and development plans: this building provides us with a new platform, on which we can harness the energies and capabilities of our talented team, and further improve the way in which we work with all our authors, illustrators, customers and other partners.”

Pan Mac has been based in the King’s Cross site since 2001 - previously it was based in Victoria and before that near Temple Station for a 30-year stint.

The announcement follows a raft of structural changes within the company over the last six months. In January, it was revealed that creative director Geoff Duffield was leaving the publisher to found an author-brand agency, with Anna Bond taking on a "new and broader" role as sales and brand director. Meanwhile in May publicists Kate Green and Alice Dewing were promoted: Green became head of Picador publicity while Dewing was appointed communications manager for Picador and partnerships. Shorty after, Pan Mac’s non fiction and events communications director Dusty Miller www.thebookseller.com/news/miller-departs-pan-mac-after-17-years-793851">departed after 17 years with the company and was not replaced.

The publisher turns 175 this autumn and is celebrating with a number of freshly-unveiled events featuring authors such as Joanna Trollope, Julia Donaldson and Kate Mosse as well as direct descendants of Pan Mac’s founders, Scottish brothers Daniel and Alexander Macmillan.

Since 2012, Pan Mac sales have risen by 38.5% in value via Nielsen BookScan's TCM, from £50.1m to £69.4m in 2017. The publisher has won the Publisher of the Year Award at the British Book Awards twice in 2017 and 2015.

Knight Frank, the leading independent global property consultancy, acted for Pan Macmillan and Savills and Colliers acted for The Charities Property Fund care of the Savills Investment Management.

Holtzbrinck stablemate Springer Nature, also based in Kings Cross, is not involved in the Clerkenwell move.