Bausch Health drops on IPO filing. But we're buying more as our thesis starts to play out

Published Thu, Apr 28 20222:03 PM EDT

We're buying 600 shares of Bausch Health Companies (BHC) at $19.52 each. Following Thursday's trade, the portfolio will own 5,200 shares of BHC, increasing the position's portfolio weighting to 3.2% from 2.84%. Shares of Bausch Health Companies were pulling back Thursday afternoon after the company announced earlier in the day the launch of its initial public offering of Bausch + Lomb and IPO the roadshow. As a reminder, we believe Bausch Health's plan to break the company up into three individual entities and use a portion of the IPO funds to pay down debt — will create value for shareholders. The three different business are eye care-focused Bausch + Lomb, Solta Medical in aesthetics, and the remaining company is Bausch Pharma. However, the company has had difficulty splitting up at shareholder friendly valuations because volatility in the markets and macro uncertainty has frozen the IPO market and delayed our thesis. So when the news Thursday morning crossed the wires, BHC initially traded higher in a reaction one would expect. It showed that the company was moving forward and making progress on its IPO plans. Finally, we had visibility into the breakup catalyst. However, the rally was short lived and the stock began to fall due to a certain disclosure inside the filing. The company disclosed that Bausch + Lomb's revenues for the three months ended March 31 are expected to be $880 million to $890 million, about flat compared to 2021's result of $881 million and below estimates on FactSet of $969 million. At first, we were quite surprised to see those numbers from Bausch + Lomb, a fantastic eye care business that's a market leader and market share gainer in several different categories, come in this low. Johnson & Johnson 's eye care unit recently reported a strong result — and usually these two businesses trend in the same direction. Back in February, BHC management guided organic growth at Bausch + Lomb to be 4% to 5% this year, making the flat first quarter even more puzzling. So why the miss? The company said in the filing that the results were positively impacted by higher volumes across all segments. But there was a $29 million headwind related to foreign exchange and Covid lockdowns in China negatively impacted the business too. Let's think about this for a moment. Bausch + Lomb reporting volume gains across all segments does not suggest that the company is losing market share, a fear that some may have when first reviewing the results. Additionally, if you were to add back in the FX headwind, Bausch + Lomb's revenue growth would be about 4% year over year, putting the company on track for its organic growth guide. While the China lockdowns have hurt business and delayed the sales of surgical instruments used for glaucoma and cataract surgery, we would expect those sales will be recovered later in the year after the end of the lockdowns. People can only delay those procedures for so long. In short, Bausch + Lomb's revenue missed in the first quarter per the company's filing Thursday, but we think it's easily explainable given current events, making the sharp selloff on Wall Street look like a big overreaction, especially with the progress being made on the IPO. Valuation Lastly, we want to point out that reports indicate Bausch and Lomb is seeking a valuation of as much as $8.4 billion. This value is nearly 25% more than the $6.8 billion market cap for the entire Bausch Health Companies has after Thursday's pullback, suggesting that a ton of value will be created if Bausch + Lomb gets that IPO valuation. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long BHC. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.

Joseph Papa, CEO, Bausch Health

Scott Mlyn | CNBC