8 Canada Square

8 Canada Square is a 45 floor skyscraper in Canary Wharf, London. The building is the global headquarters of HSBC.

Having been commissioned by the owners of the Canary Wharf Site to undertake the outline design prior to gaining site-wide outline planning permission, and because he had designed HSBC's head office in Hong Kong, Norman Foster was appointed as architect. Construction began in January 1999, with work beginning on the installation of the 4,900 glass panels commencing in the summer of 2000. The work was carried out by Canary Wharf Contractors.

The topping out ceremony took place on 7 March 2001, with the hoisting in of the final steel girder attended by bankers, journalists and contractors. The first HSBC employees began work in the building on 2 September 2002, with phased occupation completed by 17 February 2003, and the building's official opening, by Sir John Bond, taking place on 2 April 2003.

In April 2007, HSBC Tower was sold to Spanish property company Metrovacesa, becoming the first building in Britain to be sold for more than £1bn. As part of the sale, HSBC retained occupancy control and agreed a 20-year lease at a cost of £43.5m per annum. In December 2008, after Metrovacesa encountered problems with re-financing the bridging loan that HSBC had provided it and as part of a wider debt restructure for Metrovacesa, the bank bought back the property. HSBC stated it had made a £250m profit on the deal. In November 2009, HSBC once again sold the building, this time to the National Pension Service ("NPS"), the public pension fund for South Korea. HSBC's income statement on completion declared a gain of approximately £350million resulting from the transaction. In December 2014, Qatar Investment Authority completed the purchase of the building at an undisclosed price, but the building was expected to fetch more than £1.1 billion (US$1.73 billion). NPS was advised by the estate agents JLL and GM Real Estate.

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