A White Knight for Bausch & Lomb

Bausch & Lomb was slogging forward after a difficult year-the company had been embroiled in a lengthy accounting investigation involving some of its foreign subsidiaries since the end of 2005 and in early 2006 it was compelled to recall its most profitable product-. In mid-May 2007 Bausch & Lomb was wrestling with a 3% decrease in annual sales, 344 product liability lawsuits, and an overhanging intellectual property case that could affect its fastest growing contact lens line, when up galloped white knight private equity firm Warburg Pincus, with a $4.5 billion offer to take the ophthalmic company private.