Disney Has ‘Beauty’ of a Year; Net Up 28% to Near Record : Entertainment: Success of the animated movie and several others helped results, as did gains at the firm’s theme parks.

Like a beast turning into a prince, Walt Disney Co. has transformed a disappointing 1991 into a lucrative 1992, coming within a shade of setting a record profit.

Bolstered by such hit films as “Beauty and the Beast,” “Sister Act” and “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” Disney on Thursday posted a 29% jump in earnings, to $223.7 million in the fourth quarter ended Sept. 30 on revenue of $2.1 billion.

For the year, Disney earned $816.7 million, up 28% from a year earlier, on $7.5 billion in revenue. The year-end profit was barely off from the record $824 million in net income it earned in 1990.

But results weren’t so sterling at Euro Disney SCA, operator of Disney’s first European park. The company, 49% owned by Disney, posted a disappointing annual loss of about $35 million. It said it expects to be unprofitable for another year. Euro Disney blamed the results on the sagging economic conditions throughout Europe.

Disney’s big annual profit for the year ended Sept. 30 came in the midst of an ailing domestic and global economy. Despite those problems, results for Disney’s theme parks and resorts group improved considerably from last year’s dismal performance.

Chief Financial Officer Richard D. Nanula said the upswing at the theme parks was partly because of new hotel rooms in Florida and a 20th anniversary Disney World promotion. Even so, Disney’s park and resort business continues to be hurt by the sputtering economy, remaining well off its pace of the late 1980s and 1990.

Disney’s clear standout was its film, television and videocassette business. Operating profit for Disney’s filmed entertainment group jumped 21% in the fourth quarter, to $121.6 million, and soared 60% for the year, to $508.2 million.

Also posting strong results was Disney’s consumer products segment, mostly because of merchandising tie-ins with films such as “The Little Mermaid,” “101 Dalmatians” and “Beauty and the Beast.”

Disney’s year-end figures did not include sales of the just-released videocassette of “Beauty and the Beast,” which is setting records, or results from the new hit “The Mighty Ducks” and the just-released “Aladdin.”

Disney closed at $40.875, up 62.5 cents.

Euro Disney, which opened the park in the spring, has been under a blistering attack lately by financial analysts in Europe, notably Paribas Capital Markets. Last week, the firm urged clients to sell the stock in part because of the operation’s high debt load.

Merrill Lynch analyst Harold Vogel, however, said it is too early to dismiss the park as a disappointment. “Euro Disney will be around for a very long time. You just can’t judge it by the very first months,” he said.

Separately, Disney Chairman Michael D. Eisner said that the company wants to build an ocean-theme park in Tokyo similar to one that had been planned in Long Beach that Disney has since scrapped. A Disney spokesman said a second attraction has been planned all along in Tokyo.