News: GMD UPDATE 1-Silver Lake sweetens bid for St Barbara's Leonara to $490 mln

(Adds details on new offer in paragraphs 2,3 5-9)

May 19 (Reuters) - Silver Lake Resources Ltd (SLR) on Friday raised its offer to acquire gold miner St Barbara Ltd's (SBM) Leonara assets in Western Australia for A$722 million ($489.73 million).

Silver Lake hiked the cash component of the latest proposal by A$44 million, after the gold producer's previous revised offer of A$707 million was rejected by St Barbara, citing lack of synergies.

St Barbara had also said that the previous offer did not deliver sufficient cash to the company to meet its future liquidity requirements.

St Barbara did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular trading hours. The company has rebuffed Silver Lake multiple times in favour of a A$600 million proposal from peer Genesis Minerals Ltd (GMD) .

Silver Lake's latest offer represents a premium of 20.3% to Genesis' bid. It also matches the A$370 million in cash offered by Genesis.

L1 Capital Pty, a 9.34% shareholder in St Barbara, wants a fair crack at the revised proposal and has advised it is supportive of St Barbara engaging with Silver Lake to progress the "Improved Proposal" to binding offer stage, Silver Lake said in a statement.

"L1 Capital intends to vote its St Barbara shareholding against the Genesis Transaction at any meeting of shareholders convened to consider the transaction."

Silver Lake reiterated its commitment to complete its targeted due diligence enquiries within two weeks of being provided access to the relevant material. ($1 = 1.4743 Australian dollars)