McGraw-Hill Education has been officially separated from its former parent company as McGraw-Hill Cos announced Friday afternoon that it has completed the sale of MHE to Apollo Global Management LLC for $2.4 billion in cash.

The deal, first announced last November, came after an extended period in which MHC explored the outright sale of MHE or spinning it off as its own company. In the end, it decided a sale was the best approach. Full year results for 2012 were never released by MHC but in 2011 the company posted revenue of $2.29 billion and operating income of $320 million. Hampered by soft school funding, sales for the first nine months of 2012 were down 10% and earnings off 13%.

With the completion of the purchase, the education group will continue to be known as McGraw-Hill Education under the direction of Buzz Waterhouse who is president and CEO. Its corporate offices will remain at 2 Penn Plaza in New York City.