Stockbridge Exec Moves On
Submitted April 2, 2010, 1:12 PM
Dwight Merriman, a long-time San Francisco real estate money manager at RREEF Funds LLC and most recently Stockbridge Capital Group, has left to become chief executive officer of Denver-based Industrial Income Trust Inc.
Industrial Income Trust is a newly formed, public, non-traded real estate investment trust that began selling shares late last year.
Merriman, who is 49-years-old, served from September 2007 through March as a managing director and the chief investment officer of Stockbridge, a private equity real estate fund group with more than $3 billion in real estate under management.
Merriman oversaw development programs for office and industrial properties and was also involved in the separate-account side of the business whereby the money manager would invest on behalf of a single, typically large institutional investor and itself. Last year, he helped set up a joint venture with Teacher Retirement System of Texas and ProLogis, a global distribution facility provider with 475 million square feet of industrial space worldwide. This involved the pension fund investing $410 million into a portfolio of industrial properties and resulted in Texas Teachers taking a 95 percent ownership stake in the portfolio.
Before Stockbridge, Merriman was a managing director for RREEF Funds LLC where he served on the investment committee and was involved in approving approximately $5 billion in commercial real estate transactions. While at RREEF Funds he started CalSmart, a $1.2 billion value-added real estate investment fund with the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Part of his time at RREEF included setting up joint ventures with various developers around the country. Prior to RREEF Funds, Merriman spent approximately five years as a managing director at CarrAmerica Realty Corp.
"We believe there is a tremendous opportunity to build a leading national operating platform in the industrial real estate sector over the coming years," Merriman said in a prepared statement released by Industrial Income.
Merriman is also expected to serve as a director for Industrial Income Trust.
The goal is to build a national platform with exceptional exposure to markets like San Francisco and the Bay Area with high barriers to entry, a large demographic base and access to major distribution hubs. It also may buy real estate debt.
At the time of its public offering, Industrial owned no properties. Officials at Stockbridge and Industrial did not return phone calls seeking comment.
