Bausch Health Cos. has suspended plans for an initial public offering of its Solta Medical skin-care business, a month and half after the spinoff of another unit fell short of its fundraising goals.

With its own stock battered this year amid volatility and inflation fears, Bausch Health said in a statement Thursday that it decided to suspend its Solta plans “in light of challenging market conditions and other factors.” The company said the interests of its stakeholders are best served in the near-term by focusing on driving Solta’s revenue, profits and cash flow.

“For now, Solta will remain as part of Bausch Health and continue to contribute to the deleveraging of the company’s balance sheet,” according to the statement. “The company will revisit alternative paths for Solta in the future.”

In May, Bausch Health spun off its eye-care business, Bausch + Lomb Corp., in an IPO priced below the marketed range. Shares of Bausch + Lomb, which raised US$630 million in the offering, have fallen almost 20 per cent from the IPO, giving the company a market value of about US$5.1 billion.

Bausch + Lomb had sought to raise as much as US$840 million. Still its IPO was the second-biggest U.S. listing this year. Not including special purpose acquisition companies, only US$4.88 billion has been raised by 63 companies on US exchanges this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the worst showing at this point in a year since the height of the Financial Crisis in 2009, the data show.

Shares of Bausch Health have fallen about 74 per cent this year, leaving it with a market value of US$2.6 billion. That exceeds the 71 per cent drop for Netflix Inc., the worst-performing stock in the S&P 500.

Bausch Health shares rose about 3 per cent after the close of regular trading. Earlier in the day, the shares fell 7.1 per cent to close regular trading at US$7.28.

In an effort to raise money to pay off debt -- about US$23 billion as of Dec. 31 --Bausch Health had planned to keep its core pharmaceutical operations while spinning off Bausch + Lomb and Solta. 

Solta had submitted its IPO filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in February but never moved ahead with proposed terms for a share sale.