Hey, Mike, Pull Out Your Wallet

Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

What’s that noise? It’s the sound of cash registers ringing all over town, ecstatic with the news that Walt Disney Chairman Michael Eisner recently exercised stock options to the tune of $565 million. That’s a hefty chunk of change, even for someone like Eisner, who wasn’t exactly in the poorhouse. Still, he might need to pick up a few things. We suggest:

* Eisner probably uses the company jet whenever he wants to, but if he should get a snack attack for, say, Belgian chocolate in the middle of the night and has to fly there himself to pick them up, he can do it in a Gulfstream V. That’s the newest and most expensive jet that seats up to 19 people (bring your friends!). At $35 million each, he could pick up 15 or 16 and still have change.

* Eisner and his wife, Jane, live in a 60-year-old Beverly Hills home; plus they have two oceanfront lots and a fixer-upper in Malibu. If they decide it’s time for new digs, there are some impressive properties for sale, like a Malibu mansion built in 1993 that has an 18,000-square-foot main house with nine fireplaces, a screening room, formal rose garden, pool, spa and about 300 feet of beach frontage. It’s even on sale, down in the low $30-million range. They’d even have enough money left over to tear it down and build something brand new.

* Eisner can pick up some pricey canvases, since fine art prices seem to be skyrocketing again. Last month Picasso’s “The Dream” sold at auction for $48.4 million. With the kind of money he’s got, he could really start a bidding war, inflating prices even more.

* The Guinness Book of World Records 1998 reports that the largest single cash bequest wasa $500-million gift in 1955 from the Ford Foundation to 4,157 educational and other institutions. Eisner could be quite the philanthropist by topping that, plus he could get a little paragraph in next year’s Guinness Book. That would be neat.

* But Eisner could prove he’s the mensch of all time by funding the rest of downtown’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. Yes, his company just offered a challenge grant of $25 million, but heck, at the current estimated cost of $255 million, he could buy two of them outright! And then he could have any seat he wanted for any performance.

* A ‘90s man has to be versatile. So why not take over Starbucks (annual revenue: $465 million)? Like Disney, it’s bombarding the world with its presence. But Eisner could take it even further, colonizing other planets. He could also have Disney tie-ins, developing coffee drinks for kids (Snow White chocolate Frappuccinos! Yum!).

* Lots of really rich people buy islands, says Luxe magazine editor Scotty Dupree. “Land is at a premium” she explains, “and there isn’t much unclaimed land available.” She suggests something in the Caribbean, which would be a short hop from Orlando.

* Even with all that money, Eisner can’t buy everything--some things aren’t for sale. The Taj Mahal, for instance. The Grand Canyon. The Statue of Liberty. Then again, she might look really cute with mouse ears. . . .