The parent company of Hyde Park-based Blue Hills Bank made solid gains in the first quarter, despite a slowdown in profits from the same period last year.

The company reported first quarter net income of $6.6 million, or $0.27 per diluted share, compared to net income of $7.5 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2017. Net interest income for the quarter was $18.4 million, up $2.5 million from the first quarter of 2017. The margin grew 21 basis points year-over-year, settling at 2.91 percent.

“As our company’s transformative journey enters its next chapter, the first quarter of 2018 demonstrated our continued progress on several key financial ratios, most notably return on assets, return on equity and efficiency ratio,” William Parent, president and CEO of the company, said in a statement. “During the quarter, our asset sensitive interest rate risk strategy contributed to our net interest margin improvement as the Federal Reserve continues its tightening cycle, overcoming strong competitive pressures on both the loan and deposit side. We also continue to focus on expense discipline with total noninterest expense remaining flat on a linked quarter basis, excluding a fourth quarter nonrecurring charge.”

Total assets grew $173 million year-over-year to nearly $2.7 billion at the end of the first quarter. Total loans reached $2.18 billion, up $216 million year-over-year, led by strong gains in commercial real estate.

Total non-interest income for the quarter was nearly $3.9 million, down close to $3 million from the same period in 2017.

The company in the first quarter had a provision credit of $460,000, compared to charges of $57,000 in the first quarter of 2017. The credit primarily reflected a decline in loans from the end of 2017 coupled with the impact of the company’s continued migration from the use of historical loss rates based on national FDIC data to loss rates based on the company’s own experience.

Nonperforming assets were were 0.50 percent at the end of the quarter, compared to 0.53 percent at the end of the first quarter of last year.