Evonik has discussed multiple potential takeover targets -sources

* Sources tell Reuters Clariant considered, no decision made

* FT says bid for Clariant (LSE: 0QJS.L - news) could be at 23 Swiss francs per share

* Clariant shares up 9.1 pct, Evonik down 2.5 pct (Adds sources on state of talks, shares, potential premium)

By Ludwig Burger and Arno Schuetze

FRANKFURT, March 26 (Reuters) - Germany's Evonik has been evaluating Clariant and other speciality chemicals companies for a potential takeover bid, sources told Reuters, adding that it had yet to decide how to proceed.

The Financial Times reported on Thursday that Evonik was considering a bid for Swiss peer Clariant to create a group with a market value of more than 20 billion euros ($22 billion), but several sources familiar with the situation said it had also looked at DSM (Swiss: DSM.SW - news) and Croda.

Two of the sources said that work on a potential Clariant tie-up had passed a purely exploratory stage, while another source said that Clariant had not received any bid from Evonik.

"Has someone leaked it to kill the deal at an early stage?" a source familiar with Evonik's thinking said, adding that Clariant and its owners had not been receptive to approaches from peers.

Another said: "A high share price is the best defence."

By 1312 GMT Clariant's shares were trading 9.1 percent higher at 19.57 Swiss francs, giving the company a market value of more than 6 billion Swiss francs ($6.26 billion). Evonik's shares traded 2.5 percent lower.

Both Clariant and Evonik declined to comment, but Europe's leading speciality chemicals companies have been on the hunt for takeover targets, particularly in high-margin businesses that require a lot of research and close collaboration with industrial customers.

So far, however, many have been deterred by the high earnings multiples required after recent gains in stock markets. The STOXX Europe 600 Chemicals index has gained 26 percent over the past six months.

The FT cited one of its sources as saying that a bid for Clariant may value the Swiss company's shares at as much as 23 Swiss francs each, a premium of 27 percent to Wednesday's closing price.

Clariant's Chief Executive Hariolf Kottmann told Swiss newspaper Handelszeitung that he would be surprised and disappointed if anyone launched a hostile bid for his company.

"The industry knows that we do not want to be taken over," he was quoted as saying, though the remarks published in the Thursday edition of Handelszeitung were made before the FT report.

Clariant's biggest shareholders are family owners, currently holding a combined 17.6 percent stake. They became shareholders in the 2011 takeover of peer Sued-Chemie, swapping their stakes of the German group for Clariant shares.

These shareholders do not want Evonik to dominate Clariant and are unlikely to sell, several industry sources said. ($1 = 0.9061 euros) ($1 = 0.9585 Swiss francs)

(Additional reporting by Matthias Inverardi in Duesseldorf, Anjuli Davies in London and Oliver Hirt in Zurich; Editing by David Goodman)