Investors in Europe and Australia have panned Coca-Cola European Partners' $9 billion offer for Coca-Cola Amatil but investment bank Barclays says the two anchor bottlers are "better together".

In a major report released this week, Wall Street analyst and Barclays managing director Lauren Lieberman said that while the proposed acquisition had received a "significant backlash" from Coke Europe shareholders, "we view potential consolidation between the two bottlers as an unequivocal positive".