Meet the man behind new Minnetonka REIT

Last week a colleague and I wrote a story about Silver Bay Realty, a new Minnetonka-based real estate investment trust formed by Two Harbors Investment, also headquartered in Minnetonka. Silver Bay was established to acquire and lease thousands of distressed single-family houses throughout the country. Because the company is in its quiet period prior to IPO aimed at raising nearly $300 million, executives were unavailable for an interview. This weekend the New York Times published an interesting story about Silver Bay and other national groups, including the Blackstone Group, that are putting big dollars into acquisition of huge blocks of distressed real estate. The story also explores the background of David N. Miller, Silver Bay's CEO and a former Treasury Department executive who helped lead the department's Troubled Assets Relief Program. Stay tuned for more about Silver Bay's IPO...