Apparel brand Guess Inc (GES.N) posted an 81 percent rise in quarterly profit as margin improvements and cost controls helped the fashion house, and the company forecast first-quarter results mostly above estimates.

Photo: www.guess.com

Guess, best known for its jeans, also said this year, it will reignite plans for growth and invest in retail expansion, both in North America and Europe.

It also increased quarterly dividend by 28 percent to 16 cents a share.

For the first quarter, the company expects to earn between 46 cents and 48 cents a share. Analysts, on average, were looking at earnings of 46 cents a share according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The apparel wholesaler and retailer's fourth-quarter earnings was $86.6 million, or 93 cents a share, compared with $47.9 million, or 51 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding impairment charges, the company earned 96 cents a share.

Revenue rose 14.4 percent to $642.0 million.

Analysts were expecting the company to earn 82 cents a share, on revenue of $602.4 million.

Shares of the Los Angeles, California-based company had closed at $46.68 Wednesday 17 March on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Bangalore; Editing by Jarshad Kakkrakandy)