CINCINNATI (AP) _ Cintas Corp. (CTAS) on Thursday reported fiscal third-quarter profit of $234.5 million.

On a per-share basis, the Cincinnati-based company said it had net income of $2.16.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $2.02 per share.

The uniform rental company posted revenue of $1.81 billion in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $1.8 billion.

Cintas shares have declined 32% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has fallen 25%. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $183, a fall of 11% 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 CTAS at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CTAS

Automated Insights, source Associated Press News