Advanced Medical Optics Inc. of Santa Ana wants more time to show shareholders details of its proposed buy of Bausch & Lomb Inc.
Chief Executive James Mazzo said in a letter to Bausch directors that a Friday deadline to show shareholders, including one skeptic, details of the proposed $4.23 billion deal “cannot be realistically accomplished within the time frame or disclosure location you propose.”
“In contrast, we note that your shareholders are being afforded months to assess the Warburg Pincus merger agreement,” Mazzo said in the letter.
Advanced Medical is looking to wrest Bausch from a $3.67 billion go-private offer from Warburg Pincus LLC, a private equity firm.
Mazzo, in the letter, asked Rochester, N.Y.-based Bausch to confirm by Wednesday that Advanced Medical has several weeks to provide Bausch with assurances that “a significant percentage” of shareholders support moving forward with the deal.
San Francisco-based activist hedge fund ValueAct Capital LP, which holds 15% of Advanced Medical, opposes the Bausch deal.
That has prompted Bausch to say that it believed there was “substantial uncertainty” that Advanced Medical’s cash-and-stock offer would secure investors’ approval and that its board continued to recommend Warburg’s all-cash offer.
