Canary Wharf Group is in exclusive talks with Royal Bank of Scotland to buy more than £150 mln (EUR 171 mln) of debt backing the Citigroup tower, which is being sold by its private owners for over £1 bn, the Financial Times has reported.

The 45-storey tower at 25 Canada Square was bought for more than £1 bn in 2007, at the height of the property boom, by private investors Glenn Maud and Derek Quinlan. The financing package includes £875 mln of senior debt, and a mezzanine facility provided by RBS. According to the FT, Canary Wharf has been in talks to acquire this at a significant discount, since a sale of the tower might not repay all the debt.

The 110,000-m2 tower houses the EMEA headquarters of US bank Citigroup.