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CERS, Cerus Corporation

Medical Devices & Equipment consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

A medical-device business, placing equipment that pulls consumables and service behind it.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CERS · Cerus Corporation

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$234M

+16.1% YoY · 15% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $244M 5-yr avg $194M

Gross margin 77%

Operating margin −1.3% 5-yr avg −15.1%

ROIC −2% 5-yr avg −21%

Owner-earnings margin 0% 5-yr avg −11%

Free cash flow margin −0% 5-yr avg −11%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation: Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −51% through the cycle on a 58% gross margin, the operating line in the red even at its best — so the lever is whether the spending below the gross line can come down enough to clear a profit: revenue growth against the cost curve, and the cash runway until it does. Inventory runs near 20% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. Read this kind of business on the installed base and what follows it. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on supplier & input dependence, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −43%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$39M	$51M	$76M	$94M	$114M	$160M	$188M	$187M	$201M	$234M	$244M	RevenueRevenue
48%	56%	58%	64%	64%	—	—	—	—	—	77%	Gross marginGross mgn
125%	103%	75%	71%	59%	51%	44%	40%	38%	35%	33%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
80%	66%	56%	64%	56%	40%	34%	36%	29%	29%	27%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($61M)	($58M)	($55M)	($66M)	($58M)	($49M)	($34M)	($30M)	($14M)	($9M)	($3M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−156.5%	−112.1%	−72.3%	−70.6%	−51.1%	−30.7%	−18.1%	−16.1%	−7.1%	−3.7%	−1.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($63M)	($61M)	($58M)	($71M)	($60M)	($54M)	($43M)	($37M)	($21M)	($16M)	($10M)	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
($54M)	($52M)	($31M)	($65M)	($42M)	($34M)	($26M)	($43M)	$11M	$5M	$3M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$2M	$2M	$1M	$2M	$3M	$3M	$3M	$3M	$2M	$1M	$2M	DepreciationDeprec.
($505K)	($3M)	$14M	($10M)	($3M)	($6M)	($10M)	($29M)	$8M	($4M)	($11M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$563K	$353K	$1M	$9M	$2M	$910K	$2M	$5M	$3M	$4M	$4M	CapexCapex
1.4%	0.7%	1.5%	9.5%	1.4%	0.6%	1.1%	2.5%	1.4%	1.6%	1.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($54M)	($53M)	($32M)	($68M)	($43M)	($35M)	($28M)	($46M)	$10M	$3M	$1M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−137.7%	−102.5%	−42.6%	−72.4%	−38.0%	−21.8%	−14.7%	−24.5%	4.7%	1.5%	0.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($54M)	($53M)	($32M)	($74M)	($43M)	($35M)	($28M)	($48M)	$9M	$1M	($1M)	Free cash flowFCF
−137.7%	−102.5%	−42.6%	−79.4%	−38.0%	−21.8%	−14.7%	−25.6%	4.2%	0.5%	−0.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
-102%	-83%	-56%	-85%	-43%	-43%	-26%	-20%	-9%	-5%	-2%	ROICROIC
-109%	-156%	-68%	-125%	-58%	-64%	-63%	-71%	-37%	-24%	-14%	Return on equityROE
−109%	−156%	−68%	−125%	−58%	−64%	−63%	−71%	−37%	−24%	−14%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$23M	$14M	$29M	$35M	$37M	$49M	$36M	$12M	$20M	$20M	$122M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$7M	$12M	$9M	$17M	$21M	$25M	$34M	$36M	$30M	$30M	$29M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$13M	$14M	$14M	$19M	$23M	$27M	$29M	$40M	$38M	$56M	$61M	InventoryInvent.
$9M	$11M	$19M	$22M	$24M	$36M	$33M	$24M	$22M	$28M	$32M	Accounts payablePayables
$11M	$16M	$4M	$14M	$20M	$16M	$30M	$52M	$46M	$58M	$59M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$94M	$90M	$147M	$128M	$183M	$187M	$170M	$144M	$152M	$174M	$175M	Current assetsCur. assets
$27M	$23M	$53M	$50M	$60M	$79M	$117M	$68M	$64M	$101M	$107M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
3.5×	3.9×	2.8×	2.5×	3.1×	2.4×	1.5×	2.1×	2.4×	1.7×	1.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	$1M	GoodwillGoodwill
$103M	$98M	$163M	$166M	$221M	$237M	$218M	$198M	$201M	$222M	$223M	Total assetsAssets
$12M	$30M	$22M	$39M	$40M	$55M	$70M	$80M	$84M	$84M	$85M	Total debtDebt
($10M)	$16M	($7M)	$4M	$3M	$6M	$34M	$68M	$64M	$64M	($37M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-25.1×	-19.0×	-13.7×	-10.9×	-15.6×	-9.9×	-5.8×	-3.6×	-1.6×	-1.0×	-0.4×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$58M	$39M	$85M	$57M	$104M	$85M	$68M	$53M	$56M	$64M	$68M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
20.5%	18.2%	13.7%	14.2%	15.8%	14.8%	13.0%	10.9%	11.4%	9.8%	8.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
102M	108M	132M	140M	164M	171M	177M	180M	185M	191M	194M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.39	$0.47	$0.58	$0.67	$0.70	$0.93	$1.07	$1.04	$1.09	$1.23	$1.26	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.62	$-0.56	$-0.44	$-0.51	$-0.37	$-0.32	$-0.24	$-0.21	$-0.11	$-0.08	$-0.05	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.53	$-0.49	$-0.25	$-0.49	$-0.26	$-0.20	$-0.16	$-0.25	$0.05	$0.02	$0.01	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.53	$-0.49	$-0.25	$-0.53	$-0.26	$-0.20	$-0.16	$-0.26	$0.05	$0.01	$-0.01	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.01	$0.00	$0.01	$0.06	$0.01	$0.01	$0.01	$0.03	$0.02	$0.02	$0.02	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$0.57	$0.36	$0.64	$0.41	$0.63	$0.49	$0.38	$0.29	$0.30	$0.34	$0.35	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+13.7%/yr	+12.0%/yr
Capital spending / share	+15.1%/yr	+14.7%/yr
Book value / share	−5.6%/yr	−11.9%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Government Contract+31.4%
“Government contract revenue increased during the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to the year ended December 31, 2024, primarily due to an increase in revenue from BARDA in 2025 relative to the same period in the prior year.”
✓ direction matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

191Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−5%low FY2016

Gross margin

64%low FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$3Mowner earningsvs.($16M)net incomelow FY2019

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business earned $3M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $1M it takes just to hold its position. It put $2M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $1M.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($16M)	($21M)	($37M)	($43M)	($54M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1M	+$2M	+$3M	+$3M	+$3M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$23M	+$23M	+$20M	+$24M	+$24M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$4M	+$8M	−$29M	−$10M	−$6M
Cash from operations	$5M	$11M	($43M)	($26M)	($34M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$1M	−$2M	−$3M	−$2M	−$910K
Owner earnings	$3M	$10M	($46M)	($28M)	($35M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$2M	−$982K	−$2M	—	—
Free cash flow	$1M	$9M	($48M)	($28M)	($35M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	1%	5%	-25%	-15%	-22%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $1M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $2M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $23M), owner earnings is nearer ($19M).

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? -1.0×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($9M) ÷ interest expense $8M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $35M

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $20M + ST investments $29M − debt $84M

What this means
Netting $48M of cash and short-term investments against $84M of debt leaves $35M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 297d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 47 + DIO 498 − DPO 248 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -43%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range -102%–-5%; -5% latest = NOPAT ($7M) ÷ invested capital $128M

Industry peers: median -9%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran -5% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 1%

Positive this year, negative across the cycle

latest $3M = operating cash $5M − maintenance capex $1M (positive this year), after an earlier loss stretch (10-yr median -38%)

Industry peers: median -13%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 1% of revenue this year, a -38% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $23M of SBC) leaves ($19M).
Are earnings backed by cash? $5M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($16M) · cash from operations $5M

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 2.62×

Expanding

Capex $4M ÷ depreciation $1M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $234M

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.73×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Near

Debt ≤ working capital · $84M vs $74M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 10 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-0.12/share (latest year $-0.08), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.32/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 0 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 10 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −114% → −9% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −114% early to −9% lately, median −51% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 51%

What this means
Every extra dollar the business reinvested came back at a high incremental return — the lens GBM read for a moat that reinvests rather than merely harvests. The record and the 10-K are where you check whether the rate holds.
Worst year 2016 · −156.5% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2016, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$175M

Cash & short-term investments$122M
Receivables$29M
Inventory$61M

Current liabilities$107M

Debt due within a year$2M
Accounts payable$32M
Other current liabilities$74M

Current ratio1.63×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.06×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio1.13×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$68Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$2M due · $122M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+24.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.5× → 1.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$66Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$21MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$34M$13M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$2Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	William M. Greenman	$5.2M	$5.1M	($35M)
2022	William M. Greenman	$5.3M	$120k	($28M)
2023	William M. Greenman	$3.7M	$760k	($46M)
2024	William M. Greenman	$3.0M	$2.1M	$10M
2025	William M. Greenman	$3.8M	$5.8M	$3M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership5.3%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$23M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 10% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Cerus Corporation is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

1 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$12M → $85M
Debt rose from $12M to $85M while owner earnings went from about ($46M) to ($11M): the borrowing grew and the earnings that would carry it are not there now. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

Peers, Medical Devices & Equipment

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
MDXGMiMedx Group Inc	$419M	84%	-0.3%	34%	8%
ANGOAngioDynamics Inc.	$320M	54%	-12.3%	-9%	-0%
PRCTPROCEPT BioRobotics Corporation	$308M	51%	-93.9%	-115%	-96%
LMATLeMaitre Vascular Inc.	$250M	68%	21.6%	12%	16%
KIDSOrthoPediatrics Corp.	$236M	74%	-16.9%	-7%	-24%
CERSCerus Corporation	$234M	58%	-40.9%	-43%	-31%
AXGNAxogen Inc.	$225M	81%	-19.9%	-17%	-13%
SIBNSI-BONE Inc.	$201M	88%	-36.2%	-21%	-38%
Group median	—	71%	-18.4%	-13%	-18%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Cerus Corporation has delivered.

Cerus Corporation’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Base Normalize · through-cycle (($13M)) Net of stock comp (−$21M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($1M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · since FY2024−64%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Free cash flow ($1M) on 200M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-16; net cash $37M. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($4M) runs well above depreciation ($2M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $1M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh CERS against another business →

The owners of CERS: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Cerus Corporation (CERS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CERS, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← CEPL its page in the Manual CERT →

Industry order: ← CDRE the Medical Devices & Equipment chapter CLPT →