Verizon will sell its media group, which includes Yahoo and AOL to private company Apollo Global Management for $5 billion, the companies announced on Monday.
Verizon will keep a 10% stake in the company and will be called just Yahoo.
The sale will see online media brands under the former Yahoo and AOL umbrellas like TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance and Engadget go to Apollo at much lower valuations than they commanded just a few years ago.
Verizon bought AOL for $4.4 billion in 2015 and Yahoo two years later for $4.5 billion.
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.