JCPenney CEO Mike Ullman is finally swinging the ax.

Under pressure from hedge-fund tycoon Bill Ackman and real-estate mogul Steve Roth, the department-store honcho has been closing stores, trimming inventory, slashing marketing expenses and scrapping the retailer’s 100-year-old catalog.

Some critics said Ullman fell behind Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren in cutting costs during the recession.

Yesterday, Penney detailed a slew of cuts it expects will boost profit for the next three years. The retailer said it will lay off a “few hundred” employees in addition to 3,800 layoffs it announced in January.

The cost cuts, which helped fuel better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, will “allow us to significantly accelerate profitability,” Ullman said, reiterating the retailer’s promise last year to deliver earnings of $5 a share by 2014.

In addition to slashing costs, Penney said it’s boosting profit with more exclusive labels that carry higher margins, such as Sephora cosmetics and MNG, a lower-priced line from Spanish fashion chain Mango. For those lines, Penney has had “no problem passing along cost increases” despite the soaring price of cotton and oil, Ullman said.

That echoed similarly optimistic comments from Macy’s last week, whose financial chief said fears about cotton prices have been overblown.

Nevertheless, Penney remains cautious on inventory, with plans to buy between 3 and 4 percent less than last year, even as it expects comparable sales to rise by a similar margin.

For the quarter ended April 30, Penney had net income of $64 million, or 28 cents a share, up from $60 million, or 25 cents, a year earlier. Revenue rose slightly to $3.94 billion from $3.93 billion, while sales at stores open at least a year rose 3.8 percent.

Penney raised its full-year earnings outlook to $2.15 to $2.25 a share, up from a February forecast of $2 to $2.10.

Shares fell 3.2 percent, or $1.23, to $37.21 as part of a wider sell-off in retail stocks.