Leder & Schuh denies report on takeover talks with Poland's CCC

VIENNA (Reuters) - Family-owned Austrian shoemaker Leder & Schuh Group denied a media report on Wednesday that it had held talks with Polish clothing retailer CCC about a possible takeover by its bigger rival.

Austrian newspaper Der Standard reported on Wednesday that CCC had held "intensive" talks with Leder & Schuh about buying it but the two sides had failed to agree on a purchase price.

CCC and other unnamed investors remain interested in buying the Austrian group, Der Standard said, citing people familiar with one or more of the companies involved.

Leder & Schuh board member Werner Weber said there were no such talks.

"A sale is not an issue," Weber told Reuters when asked about the media report.

CCC's Deputy CEO Karol Poltorak told Reuters that the company does not comment on market rumours.

The Polish group, which has stores in central and eastern Europe, booked an operating profit of 94 million euros on sales of 978 million euros in 2017.

It bought a 70 percent stake in Swiss shoe retailer Voegele, a 51 percent stake in online footwear store DeeZee and a minority stake in Germany's Reno retail chain last year.

Leder & Schuh, which owns shoe retailers Humanic and Shoe4You, made a pre-tax profit of 15 million euros in 2017 and remained operationally profitable in 2018, Weber said.

(1 euro = 4.2854 zlotys)

(Reporting by Francois Murphy and Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich in Vienna, Anna Koper in Warsaw, writing by Kirsti Knolle, editing by Susan Fenton)