Mitsubishi Motors (MMC), the ailing Japanese vehicle maker, will raise Y30bn ($287m) from the sale of its head office to Morgan Stanley, the US investment bank, as part of an increasingly frantic drive to raise cash and stave off a looming financial crisis.

MMC has been in financial difficulty since it emerged earlier this year that it had covered up vehicle defects, which triggereda sharp drop in sales and led DaimlerChrysler, its former controlling shareholder, to offload part of its stake and scale back their alliance.