Essent Group Ltd has launched a public offering of five million shares.

The Bermudian-based mortgage insurer and reinsurer expects to generate gross proceeds of $199.5 million from the offering, equating to $39.90 per share.

Essent priced the offering on Tuesday and it is expected to close tomorrow.

Barclays, which is acting as sole underwriter for the offering, has a 30-day option to buy additional 750,000 shares from Essent.

Essent said it intended to use the capital raised for “general corporate purposes”, which may include capital to fuel growth of the company’s insurance subsidiaries and paying off debt.

Last Friday, Essent reported second-quarter earnings of $72.1 million, or 77 cents per share.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 68 cents per share.

Essent posted revenue of $137.6 million in the period.