Company: STAA
Filing Date: 2025-09-15
Form Type: PREC14A
Source: 0001213900-25-087448
Chunk: 7

Company: STAAR SURGICAL CO
Filing Date: 2025-09-15
Form: PREC14A
Chunk 7
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 that no other party would be able or willing to provide
greater value than Alcon or advance discussions at the pace at which Alcon was prepared to proceed.9

But, we believe that is merely
an excuse—one lacking sufficient justification on the Company’s part.

In deciding to sell the Company
for cash, the Board was obligated to ensure it had in hand the best offer—and especially the highest price. Failing to even engage
with the five or ten most likely interested parties left the Board, and us as stockholders, without any basis to be confident that the
Board’s chosen transaction was the best available alternative for STAAR. We are confident that a properly conducted process—one
that solicited interest from other parties beyond Alcon—would have yielded a much higher price for the Company.

The unprompted interest from
Party A and Party B underscores, in our view, the folly of the Board’s decision to conduct what was, effectively, an exclusive process
with Alcon. Indeed, we recently have heard from several parties (none of whom we believe are Party A or Party B) who also seemingly had,
and continue to have, an interest in owning the Company, but who were never contacted, never provided diligence materials, and never invited
to make a proposal.

We believe a board that was
properly focused on maximizing stockholder value would, at a minimum, have initiated contact with other potential counterparties, even
if only to generate interest, foment competitive tension, and facilitate price discovery. That STAAR’s Board failed to do so is,
in our view, inexcusable.

The Wrong Time to Transact

We also believe Alcon’s
latest approach to STAAR was opportunistically timed.

First, for the past year,
STAAR’s stock has traded below its intrinsic value, in our view, because of transitory issues with inventory in China. But the
Company’s second quarter financial results and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q—released just a day after the Proposed Merger
was announced—told a different story, reflecting an abatement of the inventory challenges the Company faced in 2024 and early 2025.10
The Company also reported a significant reduction in its expenses,11
which suggests, in our view, that it is well on its way to returning to substantial profitability.12

| 5 | Id. |

| 6 | See the Company’s proxy statement on Form PREM14A 
 filed with the SEC on August 29