Here’s an interesting tidbit given how nasty the REIT space has been as of late: Dallas-based Capstead Mortgage Corporation said it will offer at least 8.5 million shares in a public offering. The company said it had granted underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1,275,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments. The REIT said it “expects to use the net proceeds from this offering to finance purchases of additional adjustable-rate mortgage, or ARM, agency securities, on a leveraged basis, and for general corporate purposes.” Capstead is a pure-play investment REIT and invests primarily in Fannie, Freddie or Ginnie securities. It does not originate or service mortgage loans (it sold its servicing portfolio to GMAC in 1998), which puts it in slightly a different class than many of the companies I regularly discuss here on HW.