Spare a new year's thought for Walt Disney chairman, Michael Eisner, who, it transpires, will get no bonus for 1999 - quite a change of fortune for a man who received $5 million (€4.84 million) the year before and almost $10 million before that.

According to company documents submitted to the Securities Exchange Commission this week, Mr Eisner's contract provides for a bonus tied to the growth he manages to achieve in the company's earnings per share.

But for him to qualify for a bonus, earnings per share must increase by 7.5 per cent or more in the given year. In 1999, the group's operating profits fell 21 per cent to $3.2 billion, even though total turnover rose 2 per cent to $23.4 billion.

Still, the business titan who has headed the Disney media, entertainment and hotel group since 1984 is unlikely to hit the welfare rolls anytime soon: he earns a salary of $750,000 and holds 24 million Disney stock options, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.