Bid For Lunch With Warren Buffett On eBay

New York, NY, July 9--How much would you pay to slurp Coca-Cola with Warren Buffett, the world's second-richest man and arguably its most famous investor? Buffett, whose $30.5 billion net worth according to Forbes magazine places him second to Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, is donating a May 2004 lunch in New York City with the winner of an auction being conducted on Web auctioneer eBay Inc.'s website, http://www.ebay.com. The auction, bids for which are accepted through 9 p.m. PDT Thursday, is sponsored by San Francisco magazine and the Glide Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit serving the poor, hungry and homeless. Buffett will donate the proceeds to Glide. Buffett, the 72-year-old chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., donated San Francisco lunches to benefit Glide in 2000 and 2001, and two lunches in 2002. This year, Buffett is donating one lunch in San Francisco, offered in a live Thursday night auction at the city's Concourse Exhibition Center, and one in New York, offered live and on eBay. "He said, 'Let's take one to New York,'" the Rev. Cecil Williams, Glide's chief executive, said in an interview. "That's quite the center for investments and for finance." The winning New York bidder may invite seven friends, and choose to move the lunch to an earlier date at Buffett's home base of Omaha, Nebraska. Though Buffett counts Coke and hot dogs as his favorite meal, his San Francisco lunches have been in Anzu, a Japanese restaurant near Glide's office in the Tenderloin district. Williams said the two-hour lunches have covered many topics. "He would open up and talk about all sorts of things that related not just to his life, but also to investments," he said. "From what I understand, he focuses on facilitating people in how they can invest their money in the present economy." Dining with the Oracle of Omaha won't come cheap. Glide said prior Buffett lunches have been auctioned for $25,000 to $32,000 each. A bidder named "littlecatsfeet" has already bid $10,000 on eBay for the New York lunch. Steven Dinkelspiel, San Francisco magazine's publisher, expects the New York lunch to go for more than $25,000, despite the uncertain economy.

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