LONDON (Bloomberg) — HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's largest bank by market value, is in exclusive talks with an unidentified property fund to sell its Paris headquarters.

HSBC is discussing the sale of 103 avenue des Champs-Elysees and neighbouring 15 rue Vernet to a unit of the fund, the London-based bank said in a statement yesterday. It plans to lease back the buildings, a quarter of a mile away from the Arc de Triomphe, for at least nine years. The lender agreed the sale and leaseback of its main buildings in London and New York in the past six weeks, raising gross proceeds of about $1.63 billion. HSBC has reported more than $50 billion in loan losses and asset writedowns spurred by sour US home mortgages and raised more than $29 billion in capital since 2006, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

HSBC gained ownership of the Paris properties in 2000 through its acquisition of Credit Commercial de France SA. The French bank had occupied the Champs-Elysees building, which has 357,000 square feet (33,166 square meters) of space, since the 1920s. HSBC said in April it was considering selling the headquarters buildings in London, New York and Paris. At the time, brokers estimated the properties in the French capital might fetch as much as 500 million euros ($748 million).

The commercial property market in Paris and the surrounding region has begun to attract investors again after investment fell to a decade low in the first quarter. The amount spent on purchases of offices, warehouses and retail buildings totaled 1.25 billion euros in the third quarter.