Results suffered from a 90% drop in mortgage profit to $7.5 million from $77.6 million, reflecting lower margins on loans sold and higher write-offs for near-prime loans. A SunTrust investor relations official, Greg Ketron, on a conference call said Alt-A pressures cut first-quarter profit by 5 cents a share and should reduce second-quarter earnings by a similar amount. "We feel the situation is completely manageable, given the controls and guidelines that are in place," he said. Lending income declined 1% from a year earlier to $1.16 billion. A balance sheet restructuring helped push net interest margin up to 3.02% from 2.94% in the fourth quarter. SunTrust expects net interest margin of 3.10% to 3.20% this year, up from its prior forecast of 2.95% to 3.10%. It said, though, that net interest income should grow at a mid-single-digit rate, down from previous guidance for high single digits. The bank set aside $56.4 million for loan losses in the first quarter, up 69%.