Southeast regional bank BB&T Corp , which on Friday agreed to buy assets of lender Colonial Bank, said it commenced an offering of $750 million of its common stock.

BB&T said the proceeds will boost its equity capital and will be used for general corporate purposes.

Last week, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said BB&T will buy about $22 billion of Colonial's assets. The FDIC and BB&T agreed to share losses on about $15 billion of those assets. The bank had deposits of about $20 billion as of June 30.

The Winston-Salem, N.C. bank said it will grant underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 15 percent of the shares under offer.

Credit Suisse Securities LLC and Deutsche Bank Securities are underwriters for the common stock offering and it will be co-managed by BB&T Capital Markets, the bank.

BB&T shares closed at $28.23 Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Archana Shankar in Bangalore, Editing by Dinesh Nair)