Verizon will get $4.25 billion in cash from the sale along with its 10% stake in the company. Verizon and Apollo said they expect the transaction to close in the second half of 2021.
There has been increasing evidence recently that Verizon wanted to sell off its media properties and instead focus on its wireless networks and other internet provider businesses.
Last year, Verizon sold HuffPost to BuzzFeed.
It also recently sold off or shut down other media properties like Tumblr and Yahoo Answers.
Verizon’s original vision was to turn Yahoo and AOL properties into online media behemoths that could take on Google and Facebook’s dominance in online advertising.
Under former AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, the Yahoo and AOL brands were converged into a new online media division within Verizon called Oath.
With the sale of Yahoo and AOL, Verizon signalled it is no longer interested in media, unlike its rivals.
AT&T is still trying to grow WarnerMedia into a streaming competitor to Netflix and Disney, even as it struggles with loads of debt from its media acquisitions.
Comcast, another internet provider, is still in the media business as well with NBCUniversal.
