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LAVAL, Quebec—Bausch Health Companies (NYSE/TSX: BHC) is weighing the potential sale of its Bausch + Lomb eyecare business, rather than spinning off the business to shareholders as the company planned, according to a Bloomberg report earlier this week. The news service cited “people with knowledge of the matter” as the origin of its report. Bausch Health declined comment on the report, a spokeswoman told VMAIL. The Bausch + Lomb business unit includes eye-health products, including contact lenses and surgical devices, and it has “attracted interest from private equity bidders as well as strategic buyers, according to the news report.

In August 2020, parent company Bausch Health said it would spin off its eyecare unit and operate it as an independent, publicly traded company, as VMAIL reported.

As a standalone company, Bausch + Lomb could be valued at $20 billion to $30 billion, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

The company hasn’t made a final decision on a sale and could still opt to spin off or keep the business, Bloomberg reported, citing its unnamed sources. Bausch Health could also weigh a sale of part of the business instead of a full divestiture, the report said.