BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Business First Bancshares, Inc. (BFST) on Thursday reported first-quarter profit of $15 million.

The Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based bank said it had earnings of 54 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, were 55 cents per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 53 cents per share.

The company posted revenue of $87.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $61.1 million, which did not meet Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $61.3 million.

Business First shares have declined 29% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $15.72, a fall of 31% in the last 12 months.

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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on BFST at https://www.zacks.com/ap/BFST