Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management have raised their bid to buy Macy's M.N for about $6.9 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday citing people familiar with the matter.

Shares of the department store chain were up 1.1% in after-market trading.

The new proposal is to acquire Macy's stock that Arkhouse and Brigade Capital do not already own for $24.80 each, up from $24 per share offered in March, the report added. Arkhouse, which has a 4.4% stake in Macy's, had earlier raised the offer price to $24 per share from $21.

Arkhouse Management, Brigade Capital and Macy's did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

The current bid of $24.80 represents a nearly 43% premium to Macy's closing price on Dec. 8 when deal talks first emerged.

Macy's had ended a nearly two-months long proxy contest with Arkhouse Management in April by adding two of the activist investor's nominees, Richard Clark and Richard Markee, to its board.

The retailer had then said it was engaging with Arkhouse and Brigade Capital over their revised buyout proposal.

Clark and Markee were joining as part of the board's finance committee, which in addition to its existing responsibilities, would oversee the evaluation of the proposal from Arkhouse and Brigade.

(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)