Alcon, which has offered to buy Lake Forest-based Staar Surgical for $1.5 billion, exercised its right today to postpone a vote on the merger agreement.
The Special Meeting of Stockholders vote, scheduled for Dec. 19, has been adjourned to Jan. 6.
Staar has been facing pushback from its largest shareholder, Broadwood Partners, which has been rallying shareholders to vote against the merger. Neal Bradsher, Broadwood founder and president, criticized the fourth postponement of the vote.
“STAAR has had more than four months to justify its ill-advised sale to Alcon,” he said in a statement released Friday morning. “The company and its would-be acquirer have sought to apply lipstick to this pig of a deal by conducting a performative go-shop process, issuing more than a dozen press releases, releasing multiple investor presentations pouring cold water on STAAR’s own prospects – which remain bright – and making hundreds or thousands of phone calls to shareholders.”
