NOL from Singapore has bid 3.5 billion euros ($5.02 billion) for Hapag-Lloyd, while the group of Hamburg investors offered just over 4 billion euros, the paper said.
The bids include as much as 2 billion euros in debt, Financial Times Deutschland reported.
Sources close to the deal last week told Seatrade Asia Online that TUI would not offload its container unit for less than 4 billion euros, suggesting that if the FT's sources are correct, NOL is out of the race.