Trustmark Corp., which has 150 banking offices in the South, posted a first-quarter profit largely unchanged from a year ago as the company continued reducing its number of bad loans, the company reported.

For the three months ending March 31, Trustmark earned $24 million, or 37 cents per share. In the year-ago first-quarter, earnings totaled $23.5 million, or 37 cents per share.

Trustmark said nonperforming loans decreased 11.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 to $126.8 million, or just over 2 percent of all its loans. That marked the fourth consecutive quarter that nonperforming loans had been cut, the company said.

Nonperforming assets decreased $13.6 million, or 5.9 percent, to $216 million.

Net charge-offs for bad loans totaled $7.6 million, a 40 percent drop from the fourth quarter of 2010, Trustmark said.

Trustmark took a $7.5 million provision for possible loan losses during the first quarter, down from $15.1 million a year ago and $11.8 million for the fourth quarter of 2010.

Trustmark has offices in Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee and Texas.

The results were released after financial markets closed Tuesday.