Two of the longest tenured members of the board at energy crop company Ceres Inc. will not seek re-election. The Thousand Oaks agricultural biotech announced in a regulatory filing Thursday that Pascal Brandys, who has served on the board since 1997, and Edmund Olivier, who has served since the company’s inception in 1996, will not seek re-election at the company’s annual stockholders meeting in March. In the filing, Ceres said the departures do not reflect any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to operations, policies or practices. Olivier, one of the company’s founders, was also chair of the compensation committee. Brandys is a member of the company’s audit committee. Ceres has extended the exercise period of the two directors’ stock options through 2016 in exchange for both being available to provide advice to the board. Ceres is among a handful of company’s developing genetically modified sweet sorghum for conversion into ethanol. The company reported that plantings for the 2013-2014 sorghum growing season in Brazil have begun and are expected to continue through this month. But the demand for the seeds has been lower than expected, prompting Ceres to announce in October it would lay off about 20 percent of its workers. The company has yet to report a profit since going public in February 2012. In its fiscal fourth quarter earnings released in November, Ceres reported a net loss of $7.3 million. For the year, Ceres reported a net loss of $32.5 million and a revenue decline of about 2 percent to $5.2 million. Shares of Ceres closed Friday down 2 cents or 1.4 percent to $1.47 on the Nasdaq.
