NEW YORK ( TheStreet ) -- CIT Group ( CIT ) is increasingly making riskier loans as it looks to capture a $1.6 billion tax benefit. The New York-based lender to mid-sized businesses reported a first-quarter profit of $163 million or 81 cents per share Tuesday, missing consensus estimates of 86 cents per share vs. a loss of $2.13 a year ago. Shares fell 1.38% to close at $40.88. They rebounded on Wednesday, however, and were up by 1.59% to $41.53 in early trading. BTIG analyst Mark Palmer attributed the miss to higher expenses, among other factors, in a report published Tuesday. CIT, which filed for bankruptcy in late 2009 and reemerged under former NYSE Euronext ( NYX ) and Merrill Lynch chief John Thain, has been working to improve its funding costs and appealing to regulators to allow it to return capital to shareholders.