The commercial real estate investment trust CreXus Investment Corp. (CXS) board voted to reject the acquisition offer from Starwood Property Trust (STWD) hours after the offer was announced Monday morning. Starwood, also a REIT, offered $14 per share, a 20% premium over what CreXus shares were trading at Monday. CreXus said it would proceed with its common stock offerings and would use the money to buy a $586 million portfolio of commercial real estate assets from Barclays Capital. Starwood CEO Barry Sternlicht said it would have completed the transaction with BarCap had the deal gone through. CreXus hareholders, he said, would have seen an increase in dividend had the board voted for the acquisition. Starwood said it will withdraw the offer when CreXus prices its shares. Write to Jon Prior. Follow him on Twitter @JonAPrior.