A-TEC says wants to close deal for Serb miner Bor

VIENNA, April 8 (Reuters) - Austria's A-TEC Industries (ATEC.VI: Quote, Profile, Research) is still interested in buying Serbian copper miner RTB Bor and would like to close a deal next month, its chief executive told Austrian broadcaster ORF on Tuesday.

Last Friday, A-TEC said it pulled out of talks to buy RTB Bor, citing troubles raising funds for the deal due to the credit crisis and Serbia's political volatility. But over the weekend A-TEC said it had made a revamped last minute offer.

"We made a clear statement that we are very interested in closing the contract and we would be pleased if we could have further discussions which would aim to close the deal by May 7," A-TEC CEO Mirko Kovats told ORF.

A-TEC provided a $10 million bank guarantee and paid $150 million of the $466 million price in late February. It was due to pay the rest by midnight, April 4 and Belgrade refused to grant an extension for remaining payments.

In its last minute move, A-TEC offered to pay $230 million immediately, raised a bid bond to $15 million and performance bond to $60 million, and asked Belgrade to grant it a May 7 deadline to pay the remaining $86 million.

Serbia's Privatisation Agency said the board supervising the RTB Bor deal would meet on April 9 to discuss the offer. The board will forward the proposal to the Serbian government to be considered at its next session on April 10.

Kovats also said that A-TEC's net debt was 400 million euros ($631 million). He said this was a normal amount of debt in relation to the company's expected 3.1 billion turnover in 2008. (Reporting by Alexandra Schwarz, Writing by Sylvia Westall)