L.A. billionaire Thomas Barrack Jr.’s Colony Capital LLC is spinning off another business to the public markets, with Colony American Homes, a buyer of rental homes, filing with securities regulators for an initial public offering.

Colony American Homes, which owns wholly or through joint ventures 8,236 rental homes in California, Texas and six other states, said in a Thursday filing that it hopes to raise up to $100 million in the IPO. It plans to operate as a real estate investment trust and trade shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

The filing did not disclose a date for the IPO.

Colony American, which launched in March 2012 and has headquarters in New York, is managed by an Arizona affiliate of Colony Capital, Barrack’s Santa Monica private equity firm. Colony American has spent more than $1 billion to acquire and renovate homes since its founding, it said, and recorded $10 million in rental income as of Dec. 31.

“We believe current market conditions present a unique opportunity to consolidate the ownership of single-family homes in the United States at distressed prices, rent them to tenants, manage and position the assets for revenue growth, stability and capital appreciation, and thereby achieve attractive rates of return,” the REIT said in its filing.

Colony Capital’s other public REIT, Colony Financial Inc. of Santa Monica, went public in 2009. It owns and manages a portfolio of real estate-related debt and equity investments, mostly acquired during the economic downturn.

Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley and BofA Merrill Lynch will be the joint bookrunners on the Colony American IPO.