Owner of Slate, Foreign Policy buying digital media company Leaf Group

Graham Holdings, the company that owns magazines Slate and Foreign Policy, several local TV stations and other businesses, is buying Leaf Group, the owner of digital properties livestrong.com and Techwalla and other online media brands.

Arlington, Va.-based Graham Holdings, which formerly owned The Washington Post and Newsweek, announced that it will pay $323 million for the Leaf Group in an all-cash transaction that is expected to close in June or July. Leaf is headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif.

Leaf Group CEO Sean Moriarty said the deal is meant to bring “additional resources and expertise” to help his company grow.

The purchase is the latest in a spate of media mergers and acquisitions this year.

In late March, news surfaced that Axios and sports media company The Athletic were discussing a merger.

Around the same time, News Corp. said it planned to buy Investor’s Business Daily for $275 million from O’Neil Capital Management.

And at least two suitors — a hotel owner and a Swiss billionaire — are currently attempting to cut in on the accepted bid by hedge fund Alden Global Capital to acquire Tribune Publishing, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers.

BuzzFeed also completed its acquisition of HuffPost in mid-February. Not long after the deal closed, BuzzFeed began laying off dozens of HuffPost staffers in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.