HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest bank by market value, is in talks with Metrovacesa SA as a deadline approaches next month for refinancing the loan the Spanish developer used to buy HSBC's London headquarters.

The bank provided a bridge loan of 800 million pounds (US$1.4 billion) to Metrovacesa, Spain's largest real estate company, to buy the 45-story tower in the Canary Wharf business district for 1.09 billion pounds in April last year. Since then, the credit market slump and falling property prices have made it harder for Metrovacesa to raise money, Bloomberg News reported.

"We are evaluating a range of options," said David Hall, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for HSBC. He didn't say if this included buying back the property.

The sale of the HSBC tower set a record for a UK building and marked the peak of an 11-year rise in commercial real estate values across Britain. Based on declines in office values elsewhere in central London, the building may be worth less than 800 million pounds, data compiled by Investment Property Databank Ltd shows.

HSBC, the best performer this year in the 69-member Bloomberg Europe Banks Index, sold the offices to tap rising property prices and agreed to lease back the building from Madrid-based Metrovacesa. Taking in more money as deposits than it lends out, HSBC has been less affected than rivals by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The deadline for refinancing the bridge loan is November 27, "so we are considering different options," said Ursula Guerra, a spokeswoman for the Madrid-based real estate developer.

Metrovacesa accumulated 7.1 billion euros (US$9.33 billion) of debt buying buildings across Europe, including the HSBC headquarters. The Spanish developer is now seeking to waive a commitment to lenders to raise 1.25 billion euros of capital by the end of the year, an insider said last week.