TUPELO, Miss. (AP) _ BancorpSouth Bank (BXS) on Monday reported fourth-quarter profit of $68.8 million.

The Tupelo, Mississippi-based bank said it had earnings of 65 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to 69 cents per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 64 cents per share.

The bank posted revenue of $278.1 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $255.8 million, which also beat Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $255.4 million.

For the year, the company reported profit of $228.1 million, or $2.12 per share. Revenue was reported as $1.03 billion.

BancorpSouth shares have increased 10% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Monday, shares hit $30.25, a fall of nearly 2% 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 BXS at https://www.zacks.com/ap/BXS

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