But it may not be enough to win over the board of ABN Amro, which was Monday expected to meet a banking consortium to discuss a possible separate takeover offer, The Observer said.

The weekly said that the offer from Barclays would be worth 36 euros per ABN Amro share, below the 40 euros per share the consortium could afford according to economists.

The Independent on Sunday said the Barclays bid would value ABN Amro “at over 36 euros” per share.

On Friday, the share price in ABN Amro closed at 36.29 euros in Amsterdam, giving the bank a market value totalling 69.30 billion euros. In London Barclays closed at 750 pence, making it worth 49.05 billion pounds.

ABN Amro management has been under pressure from shareholder TCI, a hedge fund, to discuss takeover terms with the other groups interested in buying the lender.

The Dutch bank was Monday set to meet with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Spain’s Banco Santander and Belgian-Dutch group Fortis regarding a possible separate offer.

It is thought that the three banks, which would be able to cut more costs than Barclays, would divide up ABN assets between them.

TCI, which had initially advocated a break up of the ABN Amro group, had threatened to take legal action if ABN management did not talk to potential buyers other than Barclays.

On March 20, Barclays and ABN Amro had outlined specific plans for a merger, including that the combined group would have its main stock market listing in London, with headquarters and a secondary listing in Amsterdam.

Outside Britain, Barclays has interests in continental Europe, Asia, the United States, the Middle East and Africa.

ABN Amro has also expanded into emerging markets in Asia and has interests in Canada, Italy, Mexico and the United States. It has 4,500 branches in 53 countries.

A combined Barclays-ABN Amro enterprise would have 47 million clients and employ 220,000 people in 50 countries.

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