Company: STAA
Filing Date: 2025-09-24
Form Type: DEFC14A
Source: 0001213900-25-090869
Chunk: 8

Company: STAAR SURGICAL CO
Filing Date: 2025-09-24
Form: DEFC14A
Chunk 8
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 the Company’s proxy statement on Form PREM14A filed with the SEC on August 29, 2025 at 45-46. |

| 7 | Id. |

| 8 | Id. at 46. |

| 9 | Id. at 41-42. |

| 11 | Id. at 2. |

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Had
investors been aware of these important facts, we believe STAAR’s stock price as an independent company would have traded significantly
higher than where it was when Alcon was negotiating with the Company. In short, Alcon benefited from the fact that STAAR’s stock
price did not, in our view, reflect the Company’s improved business fundamentals and growth prospects. It is worth noting that
the management projections with respect to net sales and Adjusted EBITDA that STAAR’s financial advisor relied upon in issuing
its fairness opinion were meaningfully higher than consensus estimates at the time the Merger was announced,13indicating, in our view, that the Company’s stock price and market valuation did not reflect the Company’s improving
fundamentals while the Merger was being negotiated.

Second,
STAAR may be on the cusp of market-moving news and a significant value-creation event. An independent, randomized clinical trial comparing
the outcomes of Alcon’s LASIK platform and STAAR’s EVO Implantable Collamer® Lens (“ICL”)14recently has been completed, and we expect the results to be published soon. We believe this study may have profound implications
for the competitive positioning of the EVO ICL relative to LASIK and, therefore, for the long-term growth prospects of STAAR. It is unsurprising
to us that an acquirer like Alcon might want to act quickly to buy STAAR before the results of the study are released, with the potential
of meaningfully enhancing the Company’s earnings potential and intrinsic value.

Alcon chose
to approach the Company ahead of both of these developments. And in our view, the timing of Alcon’s approach was not coincidental.
In our view, the Company would have been better situated to negotiate a transaction after the news of these critical developments was
priced into the stock. The Board should have waited for that to occur.

An Inadequate Price

What
we believe to be a flawed transaction process and poor timing could perhaps be excused had the Board nevertheless negotiated a transaction
that maximized value for stockholders.