Property mogul Nicholas Schorsch agreed to sell most of what is left of his real estate empire to investment firm Apollo Global Management, in a deal that gives the executive and some lieutenants the chance to earn nearly $900 million.

Apollo's purchase, for $378 million in cash and stock, amounts to a wager that the private equity firm can benefit from an accounting scandal that last year brought down a financial empire Schorsch had constructed in non-traded real estate investment trusts, or REITs, a type of property fund that isn't listed on a stock exchange.