So it's goodbye to the last newspaper company in Fleet Street

Metro International has just announced it's planning to relocate key operations from Fleet Street to Stockholm by the end of this year, implicitly blaming the move on the financial downturn.

"During Metro's growth period particularly in Europe we have benefited from being located in a media capital such as London. As our business has entered into a more mature state our needs have changed and we have therefore concluded that some of our London functions would profit from being closer to both an operating unit as well as our financial market," Metro's CEO Per Mikael Jensen said in a press release.

I interviewed Jensen at Metro's London offices only February last year, at which point he was talking of employing more journalists in London to build a central content agency, producing content for all of Metro's papers there. How quickly things change.... 

Metro's move from Mayfair to Fleet Street in 2007 was met with appraising nods that print was moving back to  "the spiritual home of British Press". 85 Fleet Street was previously occupied by Reuters, the last major news organisation to move away from the “street of ink” in 2005.  

London, as seen from 85 Fleet Street: