BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Business First Bancshares, Inc. (BFST) on Monday reported third-quarter profit of $24.6 million.

The bank, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said it had earnings of 71 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for costs related to mergers and acquisitions and non-recurring costs, came to 79 cents per share.

The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 74 cents per share.

The company posted revenue of $140 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $93.2 million, missing Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $93.6 million.

Business First shares have climbed 22% since the beginning of the year. The stock has risen 27% 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