Bausch & Lomb Sells Unit

Bausch & Lomb Inc. is selling its sunglass business, including the Ray-Ban brand, for $640 million to Italy's Luxottica Group SpA, owner of the LensCrafters retail chain.

Bausch & Lomb controls around 40 percent of the global premium-sunglass business which also includes brands like Revo, Killer Loop and Arnette priced above $30. It has been in the sunglass business since the 1920s.

But its sunglass unit has struggled of late to turn a profit as rivals like Oakley Inc. of Irvine, Calif., gained with contemporary styles aimed at young customers.

The deal announced Wednesday is subject to various regulatory approvals and was expected to close by June 30.

Bausch & Lomb stock surged on the news and was up 3.5 percent by early afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange, rising $2.75 a share to $81.75.

Luxottica makes eyeglass frames in the medium and premium-priced categories with brand names like Giorgio Armani, Brooks Brothers, Vogue and Anne Klein.

More than half of the Bausch & Lomb sunglass unit's 2,800 employees work in the United States, most of them in Texas, California and New York. There are no plans to move the jobs to Agordo, Italy, where Luxottica is based, said Bausch & Lomb spokeswoman Barbara Kelley.

In recent years, Bausch & Lomb has refocused on eye health care, contact lenses, ophthalmic drugs and eye surgery instruments. Its $680 buyout of Storz Instrument Co. and Chiron Vision Care in 1997 catapulted it ahead of Texas-based Alcon Laboratories as the world's largest eye-care company.

Bausch & Lomb is also seeking to sell its noncore hearing-aid business and an animal-research subsidiary in Massachusetts.

In the fall, the company had hired investment firm Warburg Dillon Reed to advise it on options for the sunglass business. Those included a sale, a spinoff, or forming a joint venture.

Bausch & Lomb's Ray-Ban line was first developed in the 1920s to help U.S. Army Air Corps pilots cope with glare.

The 146-year-old company, which employs 15,000 people, was a dominant force in the contact lenses and eyewear industries until competition intensified in the early 1990s.

In 1996 and 1997, more than 1,200 employees were laid off when it closed sunglass plants in Oakland, Md., Bloomfield, Colo., and Rochester.

Written By Ben Dobbin, Associated Press Writer