The company grew into one of the UK's major specialist Social Science publishers, with exports accounting for over 80% of its sales.

In 1986 Pinter Publishers founded the Belhaven Press imprint, one of the first to concentrate solely on environmental matters, and covered subject areas from Geography, Planning, Urban Studies, Climatology, Development, Biology, Ecology, Geology and Agriculture.

Belhaven Press was sold to John Wiley & Sons in 1993[3] and Pinter Publishers was itself disposed to Cassell in 1995.

[7][8] Frances Pinter’s commitment to enabling thoughtful, informed debate about some of the most important questions facing contemporary society, and her talent for identifying cutting edge authors and texts, helped her to develop a reputation for making courageous decisions as publisher.

In 1979 Frances Pinter began a close connection with the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University, publishing a number of books by its director Christopher Freeman and backing a new generation of scholars, many of whom went on to highly successful academic careers, including Luc Soete, Giovanni Dosi, Rod Coombs and Luke Georghiou amongst many others.