Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) has finalized its plan to sell AOL UK, the last of the three AOL Europe assets that the company has been shedding. The price tag: 370 million British Pounds, or about $687-688 million US on currency conversions. The buyer: Carphone Warehouse, which despite the unlikely name, is a player in the UK residential telecom market.

AOL will continue to provide co-branded audience services and will manage the online ad sales for the combined customer base in a revenue sharing plan. AOL will also provide the co-branded portals and content. This will cover all of AOL's approximately 2.1 million access accounts, which is about 1.5 million broadband and 600,000 dial-up accounts.

GBP 250 million will be paid on completion and the balance paid in three installments over the following 18 months through an extension of existing Carphone Warehouse bank facilities. The transaction is due to complete by 31 December 2006 and is subject to EU competition authority clearance, although this is expected to go through and there are no known major hurdles to any such deal approval.

Charles Dunstone, CEO of Carphone Warehouse, said: "The acquisition of AOL's UK Internet access business is transformational for our broadband business. This deal gives us significant scale to complement the rapid organic growth of our free broadband proposition."

Dick Parsons, Chairman and CEO of Time Warner, said: "This agreement completes the restructuring of our AOL Europe businesses that both advances AOL's strategic transition to an advertising-supported business model and underscores Time Warner's commitment to shaping its portfolio of assets to drive the greatest growth possible."

So if AOL is clearing $688 million here, $870 million for AOL Germany from Telecom Italia, and $365 million for AOL France from Neuf Cegetel, then you end up with what is roughly a combined transaction value of $1.923 billion. That number, of course, will end up being slightly different because of various closing dates' currency conversions. Still, it's a nice pay day for Time Warner.