Campbell Soup selling Godiva to Turkish company

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Campbell Soup Co. (CPB.N) said on Thursday it agreed to sell its Godiva Chocolatier business for $850 million to Yildiz Holding A.S.

Yildiz is the owner of the Ulker (ULKER.IS) Group, a diversified food company based in Istanbul, Turkey. Campbell said the sale price represents a multiple of nearly 15 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and appreciation (EBITDA)--a measure of cash flow.

Campbell had said in August that it would explore a possible sale of the luxury chocolate brand, since it did not fit into its core portfolio of soups, baked snacks and vegetable-based beverages, with brands such as Pepperidge Farms cookies and V8 vegetable juice.

At that time, analysts said Godiva could fetch more than $1 billion for Campbell. About a month later, a news report said the company was seeking between $1 billion and $1.5 billion for the upscale chocolate business.

Godiva has annual sales of about $500 million, out of Campbell's total of more than $7.8 billion.

Ulker, the largest consumer goods company in Turkey's food industry, sells biscuits, chocolate, and beverages, had sales of $7.4 billion in 2006, according to a statement issued by Campbell. The company also has operations in the packaging, real estate and telecommunication sectors, Campbell said.

(Reporting by Aarthi Sivaraman and Michael Flaherty, editing by Carol Bishopric, Leslie Gevirtz)