Metrovacesa, the troubled Spanish property company that bought HSBC’s European headquarters at Canary Wharf less than two years ago, wants the bank to take it back.

As the downturn in the Spanish property sector worsens, Metrovacesa has failed to refinance debt secured on the building. Now it has decided to offer the 45-storey tower back to HSBC for £838 million – £150 million less than the record-breaking £1.09 billion that the Spanish company paid for it at the peak of the British property market in April last year.

Metrovacesa financed the deal partly with an £810 million bridging loan from HSBC. The loan was due to be refinanced on Thursday but the Spanish company has struggled to find the cash amid the deepening credit crisis that has sent the property markets in both Spain and Britain spiralling downward.

News of the move pushed HSBC shares down by 1 per cent to 698p yesterday, while the Spanish company’s shares fell 2.4 per cent to €52.20. In a statement to the Madrid stock exchange, Metrovacesa said that it agreed to ask HSBC to “consider any refinancing proposal which could be presented before the closure of the operation”.

HSBC would confirm only that talks with the Spanish company were ongoing. Last month, a source close to Metrovacesa said that the company was studying the possibility of refinancing the debt with other banks.

Analysts said that a sale would be better than repossession of the tower but were unsure if the bank would buy back the building at the offer price. “I would bid a lot less than that for the building,” one analyst said. “The consensus is now 45 per cent off . . . so it looks like £650 million. However, HSBC would then have to pursue them for the rest of the loan, so a compromise looks the best solution.”

If Metrovacesa sold the building for £838 million it would hit the company’s profits of €97.9 million, decreasing its net asset value by about €1.4 a share. However some analysts believe these losses would be a relatively inexpensive resolution to the ill-fated deal.

In a note to clients, JPMorgan said: “We would see the sale as being slightly positive for Metrovacesa, given an estimated yield of circa 6.7 per cent implied by the sale price, as we expect the yields to move out further than that.”

Meanwhile, the crisis in Spain’s construction sector claimed another victim yesterday as Promociones Habitat, the country’s fifth-biggest property company, went into administration.

The Barcelona-based group is the second major Spanish developer to fall victim to the crash of the building sector after Martinsa-Fadesa went into administration in July with debts of €5.2 billion (£4.3 billion).

Habitat said that it had financial commitments of up to €2.3 billion and blamed the property slump and the credit crunch.

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