Barclays is planning to sweeten its offer for ABN Amro after a consortium of rivals led by Royal Bank of Scotland revised its bid for the Dutch bank, the Financial Times said on Tuesday.
The RBS grouping, which includes Spain's Santander and Belgian-Dutch group Fortis, on Monday raised the cash portion of its bid to 93% from 79%, valuing the bank at 71.1 billion euros.
The offer of 38.4 euros per share is 10% above an all-share offer from Barclays of around 35 euros per share.
Barclays could be looking at tactics such as issuing convertible bonds, or using the 12 billion euros in cash from the sale of LaSalle that it had previously earmarked for a share buyback, the Financial Times said, without giving sources.