The biggest company you've never heard of
The new UK headquarters for the business-to-business behemoth IDG Communications is opposite the British Library and just a few blocks down from the Wellcome Trust, the medical research charity. It seems fitting for a company that made its fortune from charting the rise of the computer industry in the 20th century, and is now setting its course for the biotechnology revolution of the 21st.
You may not have heard much about IDG, but the company is no small fish. In 2007 it had revenues of more than £3bn, it publishes more than 300 magazines and 450 websites globally (including Computerworld and InfoWorld), employs more than 13,000, and encompasses the huge global analyst organisation IDC. There is also a consumer division in China, where IDG publishes titles such as Cosmopolitan and National Geographic under licence.
