Warburg Pincus seeks $10 bn plus for eye care company Bausch & Lomb
12 Dec 2012
Warburg Pincus has hired Goldman Sachs to explore a sale of eye care company Bausch & Lomb Inc, a deal thast may fetch the private equity firm more than $10 billion, Bloomberg today reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The New York-based private equity firm with $30 billion in assets under management, is seeking around $10 billion from the sale, but the asset may only fetch as much as $8 billion, said the report. Warburg Pincus had taken Bausch & Lomb private in 2007 for $3.7 billion.
The report said that Goldman Sachs has already approached health-care companies such as French drug giant Sanofi, UK-based GlaxoSmithKline and US-based Merck & Co, while it is yet to contact Abbott Laboratories.
Bausch & Lomb competes with Johnson & Johnson, Alcon, Allergan, MSD-Chibret and Ciba Vision, a unit of Novartis.
Warburg Pincus could also turn to an initial public offering as an alternative if a buyer cannot be found, the report added.
Founded in 1853 by two German immigrants, John Jacob Bausch, a trained optician and Henry Lomb, who put in the finance, Bausch & Lomb is one of the world's leading suppliers of eye health products, such as contact lenses and lens care products.