May 7 (Reuters) - State-owned Banca Monte dei Paschi (MPS) on Tuesday reported strong growth in net profit for the first quarter, beating a company-provided consensus on higher total revenue.

The group's first-quarter net profit surged 41.2% year-on-year to 332.7 million euros ($358.22 million), well above a company-provided consensus of 281 million euros.

Total revenue rose 15.2% over the period, totalling 1.01 billion euros, mostly coming from a 10.1% increase in net fees, which reflected positive performance of wealth management and advisory fees, MPS said.

Later in the month, the lender will pay a dividend of 0.25 euro per share, its first since 2011 and two years earlier than anticipated, as it has been restructuring under CEO Luigi Lovaglio who pulled off a make-or-break capital raise in November 2022.

Operating costs were slightly reduced by 0.6% year-on-year to 462.0 million euros.

The coverage of non-performing loans stood at 49.5% as it rose by 40 basis points compared to the previous quarter, while the CET1 capital ratio was 17.9% at March-end, marginally below the 18.1% value of December-end.

After rescuing MPS in 2017 and acquiring an initial 68% stake, Italy's Treasury has recently cut its shareholding to 26.7% through two consecutive market placements, raising around 1.57 billion euros.

These sales are in line with commitments agreed with European Union competition authorities at the time of the bailout in 2017, which require Rome to bring the lender back into private hands eventually.

Both transactions are also part of Rome's plans to raise roughly 20 billion euros from asset sales between 2024 and 2026 to curb Italy's debt, which is the fourth-largest in the world relative to domestic output.

A first attempt to re-private the world's oldest bank failed in 2021.

($1 = 0.9288 euros) (Reporting by Alberto Chiumento; Editing by Tom Hogue and Christopher Cushing)