The Gherkin tower in London is in a bit of a pickle. The landmark office building has been placed into receivership. The news has been confirmed by accountancy firm Deloitte, which is now looking to sell the skyscraper.

The Gherkin is co-owned by IVG Immobilien of Germany which went into bankruptcy in 2013.

IVG recently announced the sale of their private funds management business to Deutsche Fonds Holding AG.

30 St. Mary Axe - the official name of the structure - has been leased since 2009. Deloitte says the continuing defaults are due to "the asset's complex, multicurrency capital structure", adding that "Adverse interest rate and currency movements have caused the total senior liabilities secured by the property to increase materially since closing".

Neville Kahn, joint receiver, commented "The senior lenders were reluctant to appoint a receiver but felt they had no choice due to the ongoing defaults, which have remained uncured for over five years, and concerns that the borrowers’ lack of equity in the transaction had caused their incentives to become misaligned with the lenders".

The receivers say they are are in the process of communicating with all the tenants and working with the property manager to ensure the continuation of all services with no interruption to tenants.

The building was officially opened back in 2004 and is the sixth tallest building in London, at 180 metres.