Herbert Smith Freehills is advising the Australian company Optal on its acquisition by U.S. financial technology services provider WEX Inc. as part of a $1.7 billion transaction.

WEX also acquired eNett, a provider of payment solutions to the travel industry and a partner of Optal's.

Clifford Chance and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr are the legal advisers to WEX, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is serving as legal counsel to eNett.

The total deal value for the two acquisitions was $1.7 billion, comprising $1.275 billion in cash and approximately 2 million shares of WEX common stock paid.

The team from Australia-based Herbert Smith Freehills was led by partner Raji Azzam, assisted by partners Barnaby Hinnigan and Alex Kay in London and partners Siddhartha Sivaramakrishnan and Jin Kong in the U.S.

"Optal is a real Australian fintech success story and we are proud to have supported them on this milestone transaction," Azzam said in a statement.

"An area of complexity in this transaction was the deal structure, which involves the sale of two companies with different shareholder bases, in a single transaction, as well as the issue of U.S. common stock to a disparate group of shareholders across multiple countries. This was coupled with multi-jurisdictional regulatory regimes and global counterparties in the U.K., U.S.A., and Australia"

The transaction is expected to complete by mid-2020, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.