Stada holds buyout talks with CVC - Wall Street Journal

* Deal could value Stada at $4.1 bln - WSJ

* Other PVEs have also reached out to Stada - WSJ

* Report comes as Stada fends off Active Ownership

* CEO says will defend co against external pressure

* Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) in Stada jump more than 10 pct (Adds share price, further details from WSJ report)

FRANKFURT, May 25 (Reuters) - German generic drugmaker Stada has held informal talks with private equity firm CVC (Taiwan OTC: 4744.TWO - news) Capital Partners over a potential buyout, The Wall Street Journal reported, driving Stada shares up more than 10 percent.

Such a deal could value Stada at around 3.7 billion euros ($4.1 billion), the paper said in an article published on its website on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Stada's market capitalisation at Tuesday's close was 2.74 billion euros.

Stada Chief Executive Hartmut Retzlaff told Reuters in an e-mailed statement he would not comment on any speculation. CVC also declined to comment on the report.

The report comes as Stada faces pressure from activist investor Active Ownership Capital, which is seeking a thorough overhaul by replacing supervisory board members to add international healthcare expertise.

Stada over the weekend launched a counterattack on Active Ownership, which holds about 5 percent of Stada shares and a further 2 percent in options.

Backing off from a previous deal with Active Ownership to install three of the activist investor's nominees on the board of directors, Stada said a committee of its current supervisory board would now pick three independent candidates.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) also pushed back its annual shareholders' meeting by nearly three months to Aug. 26.

Retzlaff said Active Ownership's candidates were welcome to throw their hats in the ring but that the investment firm had asked for time to think it over.

"We will defend ourselves against external pressure to shoehorn everything into abstract figures or judge it by dubious benchmarks. That does not do our complex operating business justice and ignores reality," he told Reuters.

But he said a fourth board member, Dieter Koch, had agreed to step down - creating more room for manoeuvre for both parties to install some of their preferred candidates.

Active Ownership partner Florian Schuhbauer, however, told Reuters that all six of the Stada supervisory board seats that are not reserved for labour representatives should be put up for reelection.

The Wall Street Journal said in its report that other private equity firms had also reached out to Stada's management but said it was unclear whether meetings had taken place yet.

There is no guarantee a deal will be agreed with CVC, it cited its sources as saying.

Shares in Stada shot up more than 10 percent to their highest level in almost eight years following the Journal report and were up 7.1 percent at 46.74 euros by 1432 GMT.

($1 = 0.8972 euros) (Reporting by Maria Sheahan, Ludwig Burger, Patricia Weiss and Alexander Huebner; Editing by Paul Carrel and Georgina Prodhan)