Easterly Investment Partners LLC Sells 322,084 Shares of Cerus Corporation $CERS

Easterly Investment Partners LLC lowered its stake in Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) by 94.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 20,229 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock after selling 322,084 shares during the quarter. Easterly Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Cerus were worth $42,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of CERS. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Cerus by 291.6% in the first quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,429,062 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $1,986,000 after buying an additional 1,064,133 shares in the last quarter. UBS Group AG lifted its stake in Cerus by 227.1% in the fourth quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 1,142,502 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $2,354,000 after buying an additional 793,244 shares in the last quarter. Millennium Management LLC lifted its stake in Cerus by 17.6% in the third quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 3,470,062 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $5,517,000 after buying an additional 519,301 shares in the last quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd lifted its stake in Cerus by 156.5% in the second quarter. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd now owns 749,564 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $1,057,000 after buying an additional 457,347 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Algert Global LLC lifted its stake in Cerus by 451.3% in the third quarter. Algert Global LLC now owns 509,636 shares of the biotechnology company’s stock valued at $810,000 after buying an additional 417,200 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 78.37% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Cerus

In other Cerus news, CFO Kevin Dennis Green sold 127,544 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1.66, for a total value of $211,723.04. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 1,040,551 shares in the company, valued at $1,727,314.66. The trade was a 10.92% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO William Mariner Greenman sold 447,757 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $1.66, for a total transaction of $743,276.62. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 4,998,493 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,297,498.38. This represents a 8.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 1,210,949 shares of company stock valued at $2,156,291. Corporate insiders own 3.40% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CERS has been the topic of a number of research reports. Zacks Research raised shares of Cerus from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Cerus in a research report on Wednesday, March 25th. BTIG Research raised shares of Cerus from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $4.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised shares of Cerus from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 2nd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Cerus presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $4.00.

Cerus Price Performance

Shares of CERS opened at $2.84 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $569.05 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -56.80 and a beta of 1.76. Cerus Corporation has a 1-year low of $1.15 and a 1-year high of $3.15. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $2.21 and its 200 day simple moving average is $2.14. The company has a current ratio of 1.63, a quick ratio of 1.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47.

Cerus (NASDAQ:CERS) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The biotechnology company reported ($0.01) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.03) by $0.02. The business had revenue of $59.89 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $55.68 million. Cerus had a negative net margin of 4.41% and a negative return on equity of 15.18%. On average, research analysts forecast that Cerus Corporation will post -0.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cerus Company Profile

Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company dedicated to enhancing the safety of blood transfusions worldwide. Its flagship offering, the INTERCEPT Blood System, employs pathogen reduction technology designed to inactivate a broad spectrum of viruses, bacteria, and parasites in donated platelets and plasma. This approach aims to mitigate the risk of transfusion-transmitted infections and improve blood component safety for patients.

The INTERCEPT platform integrates seamlessly into existing blood center workflows, providing a one-step treatment process for collected blood products.