Eyecare products company Bausch + Lomb files for IPO

Bausch + Lomb, a Canadian maker of contact lenses and eyecare products, filed for an IPO.

Why it matters: This could be the first mega-IPO of 2022, with Renaissance Capital estimating that the issuer could raise up to $3 billion.

Details: Bausch + Lomb plans to list on both the NYSE and Toronto Stock Exchange, and reports $139 million of net income on over $2.7 billion in revenue for the first nine months of 2021.

Backstory: Reports first surfaced last March that parent company Bausch Health (NYSE: BHC) was seeking to sell all or part of the eyecare business, which it bought from Warburg Pincus for $8.7 billion in 2013, with price talk in the $20 billion to $30 billion range.

• It confirmed spinoff plans in August, shortly after which there was a direct listing by Warby Parker, which has begun to expand into contact lenses.

The bottom line: "Founded in 1853, Bausch & Lomb is an iconic name in eye care. The company invented Ray-Ban sunglasses for military pilots and later introduced some of the first mass-produced soft contact lenses and contact-lens solutions." — Wall Street Journal

Go deeper: Private equity giant TPG (finally) goes public