Re/code Reports AOL In Talks To Sell Huffington Post

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) might dump the Huffington Post when it completes the $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL, Inc. (NYSE: AOL).

The once high-flying AOL has been in "advanced discussions about a HuffPo spin-off" according to unidentified sources cited by Re/code.

Potential buyers for HuffPo and AOL's technology site TechCrunch include German media firm Axel Springer as well as several private equity firms, according to the report.

HuffPo could be valued at more than $1 billion in an outright sale or joint venture, Re/Code said. AOL acquired The Huffington Post in 2011 for a reported $315 million.

Related Link: Verizon-AOL Merger: What's Twitter Saying?

AOL's content sites would be "at best an irrelevance" for Verizon, said to be mostly attracted to AOL's relatively high-growth advertising technology platform, according to The Guardian.

AOL's automated ad sales platforms posted 2014 revenue growth of 21 percent, Re/Code noted, while its HuffPo and TechCrunch business grew revenue only 8 percent.

Verizon last year ran a brief experiment running a news site it called Sugarstring, which shut down in December amid some acrimony over its alleged censorship of news on NSA surveillance and net neutrality.