UPDATE 1-Pzena Investment Q4 earnings misses Street by a penny

* Q4 EPS, excl items, $0.08 vs est $0.09

* AUMS rise 34 pct

* Expenses up three fold

Feb 16 (Reuters) - U.S. money manager Pzena Investment Management Inc (PZN.N) reported quarterly profit marginally below Wall Street estimates as expenses rose, but total assets under management rose 34 percent from a year ago.

Net income for the fourth quarter was $0.6 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with $8.4 million, or 13 cents a share, a year earlier . Excluding items, the company earned 8 cents a share.

Revenue rose about 2 percent to $18.3 million.

Analysts were looking at earnings of 9 cents a share, on revenue of $19.5 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Total operating expenses tripled to $8.7 million.

At Dec. 31, the company managed $14.3 billion in total assets, an increase of about 34 percent from $10.7 billion at Dec. 31, 2008.

Average shares outstanding fell nearly eight fold to 8.6 million shares in the quarter.

Shares of the company closed at $6.86 in regular session on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Sweta Singh in Bangalore; Editing by Anil D'Silva)