Sunday, March 28, 2010

Fred Hassan's Myopic "Deal Goggles": Back On, At B+L?


The "Heard on the Street" column of The Wall Street Journal ran this, on Friday:

. . . .Bausch & Lomb has its deal goggles back on. Under new leadership, the restructuring eye-care specialist is looking for bolt-on deals priced in the hundreds of millions of dollars to revive its prospects. According to someone familiar with the thinking of new Chairman Fred Hassan and Chief Executive Brent Saunders, deal making is likely to be concentrated in core areas such as lenses and solutions, eye surgery and pharmaceutical treatments for conditions like glaucoma. Nothing like staying focused. . . .

That last bit gets it exactly right -- this is "nothing like" staying focused. If Mr. Hassan follows his recent proclivities, now freed up by the cloak of B+L's private company status -- these "deal goggles" will simply be vehicles to take charges, lay off employees and ultimately bust-up old B+L. I don't think I'll bother to watch -- as I saw this particular rerun, last summer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And it's not even 2 weeks since being named CEO.

The moniker 'Fast Freddy' seems somewhat appropos.

Salmon

Condor said...

No doubt.

Thanks, Salmon!

Namaste

condor said...

In addition, take a look at what Hassan's minions were up to, with PegIntron®, in Vietnam -- unbelievable!

[Or perhaps, not so.]

Namaste