BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) _ Business First Bancshares, Inc. (BFST) on Wednesday reported fourth-quarter profit of $18 million.

The Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based bank said it had earnings of 67 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, came to 66 cents per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 61 cents per share.

The company posted revenue of $82.8 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $64.3 million, which also topped Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $62 million.

For the year, the company reported profit of $54.3 million, or $2.32 per share. Revenue was reported as $228.9 million.

Business First shares have dropped 5.5% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $20.92, a decrease of 25% in the last 12 months.

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

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