UPDATE 2-Revlon swings to profit from cont ops, shares up

* Q3 EPS cont ops $0.45 vs loss of $0.30 a year ago

* Q3 sales fall 2.5 pct

* SG&A expenses fall 17 pct to $155.4 mln

* Shares up 48 pct (Recasts, adds conference call comments, updates stock movement)

Oct 29 (Reuters) - Cosmetics maker Revlon Inc (REV.N) swung to a quarterly profit on a continuing operations basis, helped by cost cuts, sending its shares soaring 48 percent.

For the third quarter, Revlon, which sells its products under brands such as Charlie and Mitchum, posted a profit of $23.1 million, or 45 cents a share, compared with a profit of $29.2 million, or 57 cents a share, a year ago.

However, excluding an 87-cent gain from the sale of discontinued operations, the company had posted a loss of 30 cents a share in the year-ago period.

Net sales in the current quarter fell 2.5 percent to $326.2 million.

One analyst had expected the company to post a loss of 16 cents a share, on revenue of $313.5 million according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Selling, general and administrative expenses at Revlon fell 17 percent to $155.4 million.

Interest expense in the quarter fell by $6.1 million from the year-ago period and on a conference call with analysts, a company executive said it expects to continue to benefit from lower interest on its floating rate debt.

The company also said it paid down $58 million of debt this year, including $10 million in the third quarter.

Shares of the company, controlled by financier Ronald Perelman, were up $2.24 at $7.99 Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. They touched a high of $8.50 earlier. (Reporting by Vidya Lakshmi in Bangalore; Editing by Ratul Ray Chaudhuri, Himani Sarkar)