Fund trader stars in Hollywood film

Dubai: The head of Austrian hedge funds company Superfund has a role in Oliver Stone's new movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the casting list of the movie published in the Internet Movie Database reveals.

The sequel to the highly successful 1987 Wall Street movie will be released on September 24 around the world, including the UAE. Christian Baha is supposed to play more or less himself, a hedge fund manager, in a short speaking role on the side of Michael Douglas in the lead role of Gordon Gekko.

Baha, a former police officer in Vienna, Austria, launched the Superfund investment company in 1996. The investment strategy is based on computer software to run trades in commodity and financial futures. After a very successful period with extraordinary high yields the performance of the funds worsened in the wake of the financial crisis. Between 1996 and 2003, the company's flagship fund reached a performance of almost 500 per cent.

In its last years, however, the return of the "alternative financial instruments" was broadly negative. Wall Street director Oliver Stone, who is said to be invested in Superfund funds, might himself have experienced a rollercoaster ride, according to Hollywood gossip.

Last June, Superfund said it was closing its branch in Dubai, which opened in 2007.

A third of its international branches were also closed.