Mercantile Bancorporation Inc. has reported first-quarter net income of $118,037,000, up 2.8 percent over the first quarter of 1998, and earnings per share of 74 cents, down from the 75 cents of a year ago.

Excluding non-recurring gains related to the sale of non-strategic assets during the first quarter of this year, net income grew by 20.9 percent. After adjusting for non-recurring gains, earnings per share rose by 15.6 percent.

Total assets at the end of the first quarter were $31.8 billion.

Mercantile Bancorporation, headquartered at St. Louis, operates offices at more than 500 sites throughout Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Illinois and Arkansas, including Cape Girardeau. Mercantile was recently named to the Fortune 500 list of U.S. companies.