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* Company could fetch 800 mln to 1 bln eur incl debt -source
* Slow French GDP growth could weigh on valuation
* Goldman, Astorg decline to comment
By Christian Plumb and Anjuli Davies
PARIS/LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) - Buyout firm AstorgPartners has hired Goldman Sachs to look for a buyer forFrance's leading funeral services firm, OGF, sources familiarwith the mandate said.
The auction of the company, which Astorg acquired for anenterprise value of roughly 300 million euros ($393 million) in2007, is in its early stages and could be complicated by thelinks between economic growth - at a virtual standstill inFrance - and willingness to spend on funeral services.
Still, OGF has earnings before interest, taxes, depreciationand amortisation (EBITDA) of about 100 million euros, so couldsell for 800 million to 1 billion including debt, based ontypical multiples for such deals, one of the sources said.
OGF had 2012 revenue of 533 million euros, representingabout a quarter of the French funeral services industry,according to its website.
Astorg Partners and Goldman Sachs both declined to comment.
The sale would be the latest in a series of efforts byprivate equity firms to sell on companies bought in 2006-2007when the European buyout market was booming, helped by a readysupply of debt.
The market - particularly in France - has slowed to atrickle as of late as many buyout firms have had troubleattracting interest from other funds for businesses which havealready cut costs under a previous round of owners.
OGF, which has more than 5,500 employees, is itself on atleast its second private equity buyer, and the 170-year-old firmwas owned in the latter part of the 1990s by U.S. funeralscompany Service Corporation International.
Among firms similar to OGF elsewhere in Europe, Britain'sDignity Plc last month forecast a profitable 2013 andraised its dividend in a sign of confidence that customers wouldnot cut spending on last rites.
But the top Spanish funeral services company, Memora, hasbeen hit by the country's deep recession, its private equityowner 3i said recently, cutting its valuation by 45million pounds ($68.9 million) to 74 million.
"It's a GDP-driven business," one of the sources said,noting that Memora had seen a "dramatic drop-off" in Spain,where he said many had been opting for cut-rate coffins as thecountry's steep recession bites.
Astorg has been relatively active in what has been a quietmarket, acquiring the microconnections unit of France's FCI fromBain Capital in 2011 and earlier this month buying U.S.-basedradioactivity measuring business Canberra from French nucleargroup Areva.
