PHOENIX (AP) _ Republic Services Inc. (RSG) on Tuesday reported first-quarter profit of $246.3 million.

The Phoenix-based company said it had profit of 77 cents per share.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 75 cents per share.

The waste management company posted revenue of $2.55 billion in the period, also beating Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $2.54 billion.

Republic Services shares have declined 14% since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has declined 11%. In the final minutes of trading on Tuesday, shares hit $77.48, a drop of roughly 7% 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 RSG at https://www.zacks.com/ap/RSG

Automated Insights, source Associated Press News