Company: STAA
Filing Date: 2025-09-29
Form Type: DFAN14A
Source: 0001213900-25-093211
Chunk: 6

Company: STAAR SURGICAL CO
Filing Date: 2025-09-29
Form: DFAN14A
Chunk 6
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 would be interested in acquiring the Company. In fact, as
the Company itself has disclosed, at least two potential counterparties took it upon themselves to contact an unconflicted STAAR Board
member to express their interest in acquiring STAAR during the same monththat STAAR was engaging with Alcon.

And yet, the Board took the lead
of its Chair and effectively shunned the inbound interest (and did not attempt to foster other interest), did not provide those two parties
with diligence materials or access to management, and did not invite them to submit a concrete proposal until .

There is simply no way to know
how many other parties might have been interested, nor what these alternative potential bidders (and others) might have proposed, if only
the Board had bothered to engage properly. The hurried and limited “window shop” period is no substitute for a well-run strategic
alternatives process — even though it may provide the Board the fig leaf of fiduciary duty protection under the law. It is simply
a fact that very few alternative proposals have ever been made during “window shop” periods in the history of M&A practice.
By our count, just 10 such proposals in the last 25 years have succeeded. The truth is, even interested parties are deterred from attempting
to break up signed transactions due to the procedural and legal hurdles they would have to overcome, a feat made all the more challenging
when the signed deal is seemingly with a board’s preferred merger partner.

In short, we do not believe
that the Board’s “process” — negotiating with just one party while effectively ignoring interest from others —
was designed or was likely to produce the best available offer, and the highest price, for the Company. We are confident that a properly
conducted process, one that canvassed the full universe of potential buyers, would have uncovered interest from others, stoked competitive
tension, and resulted in a price that reflects STAAR’s intrinsic value.

The competitive tension alone
created by a fulsome process might have led to a better deal. After all, less than a year ago, Alcon itself proposed to buy STAAR for
$62 per share. STAAR’s business outlook today is strongerthan
it was then, even if the stock was trading lower prior to the announcement of the Proposed Merger. Notably, the stock was trading lower
without knowledge of the second-quarter business results and management’s projections for strong revenue growth and profitability,
which were disclosed only after the announcement of the