Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Property Trust raised $810m in an initial public offering.

Starwood sold 40.5 million shares at $20 each, the Greenwich, Connecticut-based company said today in a statement. The company yesterday increased its IPO by 62% after first announcing plans to raise $500m.

Starwood Property will invest in financing and managing commercial real estate debt and residential mortgages at a time when U.S. homes, office buildings, rental apartments, and hotels are falling in value and homeowners and landlords are having trouble refinancing in the credit crisis. Sternlicht, who built Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. into the third-largest U.S. lodging company, is chief executive officer of the new real estate investment trust.

bloomberg.com