What happened
Shares of Bausch Health Company (BHC 1.05%) were jumping 4.4% at 10:54 a.m. ET on Wednesday after rising as much as 11.8% earlier in the day. The gain came after the company announced results so far for its offers to exchange some existing senior notes for new secured notes.
So what
Bausch Health announced on Aug. 30 that it planned to conduct these exchange offers. At that time, the company stated that holders of nearly 23% of the existing senior notes had agreed to tender all their notes in the exchange offers.
There appeared to be some confusion among noteholders after that announcement, though. On Sept. 8, Bausch released a clarification about some of the provisions pertaining to its exchange offers.
Any concerns that the exchange offers would meet significant resistance, however, should now be put to rest. Bausch's report today confirmed that an aggregate principal amount of nearly $5.58 billion of existing senior notes has been validly tendered.
Why would this cause the healthcare stock to move higher? Perhaps because investors don't want anything to get in the way of Bauch's planned separation of Bausch + Lomb (BLCO 2.23%). This separation is contingent upon several factors, including the company hitting targeted debt leverage ratios.
Now what
Bausch's efforts to fully separate from Bausch + Lomb are something investors should watch right now. Bausch Health has already transferred shares equalling around 50.1% of Bausch + Lomb into a wholly owned restricted subsidiary.
