Colony Financial prices offering of 10M shares

Colony Financial doubles offering of common stock to 10M shares, prices offering

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Colony Financial Inc. said Friday that it doubled the size of its offering of common stock to 10 million shares and priced it.

The Los Angeles-based real estate finance and investment company also granted the offering's underwriters — Morgan Stanley and BofA Merrill Lynch — an option to buy up to an additional 1.5 million shares.

The company originally said Thursday that it would offer 5 million shares of its stock and give its underwriters an option to buy up to an additional 750,000 shares.

The offering is expected to close on or about Wednesday. The news release did not say what the shares have been priced at. A spokesman said that would be disclosed in a filing later Friday.

Colony said it plans to invest at least $45 million of the net proceeds from the offering in CSFR Operating Partnership LP, an investment vehicle for single-family rental homes that the company has an associate general partner interest.

Colony shares fell 24 cents to $20.71 in midday trading Friday. They peaked for the past year at $21.09 earlier this week and traded as low as $16.12 almost a year ago,