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Renasant Corp. in Tupelo, Miss., said late Tuesday that its second-quarter earnings jumped 51.7% from a year earlier, to $5.8 million, due to a wider net interest margin and a decline in its loan-loss provision.

Earnings per share of 23 cents beat the average analysts' estimate by a penny, according to Thomson Reuters.

Net interest income at the $4.26 billion-asset company rose 37.7% from a year earlier, to $32.6 million, helped by two acquisitions of failed banks. Renasant's margin widened by 61 basis points from a year earlier, to 3.76%.

Both net interest income and net interest margin were supported by "efforts to restructure our funding mix and deploy cash into higher yielding alternatives," E. Robinson McGraw, the company's chairman and chief executive, said in the press release.

The provision fell 23.6% from a year earlier, to $5.4 million. Nonperforming assets fell 8.4% from the second quarter of 2010, to $120.4 million. As a percentage of total assets, nonperforming assets fell to 2.83% from 3.66% a year earlier.