Western Asset Mortgage Capital Prices Public Offering Of 13 Mln Shares

(RTTNews) - Western Asset Mortgage Capital Corp. (WMC) Friday said it has priced a public offering of 13 million shares of common stock for total estimated gross proceeds of about $193 million.

The company has also granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 1.95 million shares of common stock. The offering is expected to close on April 9.

Concurrent with the completion of this offering, the company will issue and sell in a private placement shares of common stock at the public offering price to Western Asset Management Company, the manager of the company.

This will be equal to 5 percent of the aggregate number of the shares sold in the offering, subject to a maximum purchase price of $10 million.

The company intends to use the net proceeds of the offering primarily to purchase Agency residential mortgage-backed securities or RMBS, Non-Agency RMBS and commercial mortgage-backed securities or CMBS, focusing primarily on Agency RMBS and for general corporate purposes.