LONDON (Reuters) - British out-of-town fashion and homewares retailer Matalan has received a takeover approach from private equity firm CVC, Sky News said on Saturday 24 October.

Photo: www.matalan.co.uk

Giving no details of its sources, it said the approaches from CVC for the privately-owned company were "very tentative" at this stage.

"There is no live auction process going on," Sky's City editor Mark Kleinman said.

"But it's pretty clear from my sources that Matalan would expect to conduct some sort of auction sometime during the first half of next year.

"And we would expect given that CVC has indicated its interest already that it will be at the negotiating table at that time."

A spokeswoman for CVC Capital Partners declined to comment, while nobody from Matalan was immediately available.

Matalan runs 203 stores across the UK and has seen a strong performance during the past year, with like-for-like sales up 8.2 percent in the 14 weeks to June.

Its Chief Executive Alistair McGeorge said in June that it expected another year of challenging trading conditions, but was confident Matalan's focus on the budget end of the market would yield benefits.

CVC, which was founded in 1981 and headquartered in Luxembourg with a global network of 19 offices, has a track record of investing in the retail sector.

(Reporting by Avril Ormsby; editing by Patrick Graham)