Opalesque was formed in 2001 by Matthias Knab, an internationally recognised expert on hedge funds and alternatives, to provide professional news services to participants in this industry. Mr. Knab has frequently served as chairman of hedge fund conferences in New York, Greenwich, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Miami, Bahamas, Stockholm, and Dubai etc. In addition, he has presented or moderated at hedge fund events in London, Geneva, Zurich, Singapore, Sydney, Cape Town, Madrid, Moscow, Sao Paolo, San Francisco, Toronto, Cayman Islands, Auckland and Bombay, and lectured at numerous universities on the subjects of hedge funds and the state of the global alternative asset management industry. Already in 2000 Matthias Knab started to publish a pioneering email based newsletter "Industry Report" focusing on the ascent of Electronic Trading within the online brokerage industry. Since February 2003, Opalesque has been publishing “Alternative Market Briefing”, the premium news service on hedge funds and alternatives. The launch of these Briefings was a revolution in the hedge fund media space, bringing transparency where there was opacity and by reliably delivering a a daily accurate professional reporting service. Today, Opalesque publishes over 400,000 digital copies of its 11 specialist publications to a growing professional user base.