Private equity players TPG and Blackstone are planning a joint bid for Canadian contact lens supplier Bausch + Lomb, Financial Times reported on October 14 citing people familiar with the matter.
One Bloomberg estimate projected the sale to value Bausch + Lomb at over $13 billion, making the deal potentially one of the largest PE buyouts of 2024.
Shares of Bausch + Lomb have risen by 10% in last one month, as reports of stake sale have started to gather steam.
Bausch + Lomb had been testing interest from potential buyers, and had separated from parent Bausch Health in 2022, while it still owns a large stake in the eyecare company. Various options to disentangle the two companies are being explored, as per several news reports.
Bausch + Lomb contact lenses are available in India too, through players like Lenskart, YourSpex and MedPlusLens.
Bausch Health had in 2020 announced plans to separate Bausch + Lomb into an separate, publicly traded company, in an effort to separate the eye care business from Bausch Health's other pharmaceutical portfolio. Bausch Health may use the funds raised through the stake sale to partially repay debt, a Bloomberg report said in September.
Bausch + Lomb owes $4.7 billion lenders, said Bloomberg, while Bausch Health has over $20 billion of debt on books.
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