MY BEST AND WORST INVESTMENTS

Mark Martin Manager of the £607m Neptune UK Mid Cap fund

BEST: GENUS

GENUS has a leading reputation in animal genetics. It enables farmers to breed animals naturally but with superior genetic characteristics. It’s tremendously valuable to farmers, who are increasingly focused on productivity.

The firm has a significant budget for research and development so, while it already has high barriers to entry in its field, it can move into new areas such as genetic editing, in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and sexed semen – which means farmers can breed primarily female cows, for example.

We first bought shares in March 2014 at £10.50 after the price dipped because of fears about a pig virus epidemic. Ironically, Genus is developing technology that could prevent such epidemics. Shares climbed to £19.73 last November so we took some profit, but still hold some of the shares, which are now £17.83.

WORST: CHEMRING

CHEMRING is a defence company which specialises in munitions and electronic warfare. A flurry of acquisitions and increased defence spending in Iraq and Afghanistan meant the share price grew rapidly until 2011 – they peaked at £7.29.

But since then it has struggled. Defence budgets were pared back significantly and some of its acquisitions turned out to be overpriced.

I first bought shares in 2013 at around £3.18. I felt it had good technology and a large market share in niche areas which tend to be less vulnerable to cost cutting, and I thought that defence spending would be more resilient than it has proved to be.

Shares are now just £1.73. I still hold the stock, though. Chemring has significantly restructured, defence budgets are on the increase and I’m hoping it could be an attractive takeover target.