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Travelport Agrees to Sell Enett to Wex at a Bargain Price

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Sean O'Neill
Melissa-Smith-WEX-Chair-and-CEO

Photo Credit: Wex Chair and CEO Melissa Smith has proven her mettle by being shrewd negotiators, going up against the famously ferocious litigators of Elliott Management, part-owner of Travelport. Wex, a payments company, has bought eNett and Optal from Travelport for $577.5 million, less than the $1.7 billion original price. Wex

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Wex Chair and CEO Melissa Smith has proven her mettle by being a shrewd negotiator, going up against the famously ferocious activist investor Elliott Management, part-owner of Travelport.

Wex, a business-to-business payments company, said it had bought eNett and Optal from Travelport for $577.5 million in cash — far less than the $1.7 billion price Travelport expected in January. "I can confirm that the sale of eNett and Optal to Wex is now complete," a Travelport spokesperson said on Wednesday. "ENett, Optal, and Wex agreed to a settlement, which resolved all outstanding litigation, and the transaction is now closed." The deal lets Wex scale up business-to-business payments solutions for a travel sector that often is still using fax machines to settle bills. It lets Travelport focus on its core competency of distribution. UK-based Travelport expected much more cash when it announced the $1.7 billion sale in January. Travelport had majority ownership in eNett, with Optal as a minority owner. But the Portland, Maine-based buyer, Wex, said in May that it was walking away from the agreement because the pandemic had redu

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