Warren Buffett Lunch Goes For $250,000

San Francisco, CA, July 11--A bidder at an auction conducted in San Francisco Thursday night and on auctioneer eBay's Web site agreed to pay $250,000 to lunch with Warren Buffett, the world's second richest man. The auction was sponsored by San Francisco magazine and the Glide Foundation, a non-profit organization offering programs to the poor, hungry and homeless in San Francisco. Buffett, the billionaire chairman of holding company Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will donate the proceeds to Glide. Glide said on Friday the lunch went for a higher bid than the past three years' lunches with Buffett combined. The winning bidder, whose identity had not yet been confirmed, may invite seven friends to the May 2004 lunch, to be held in New York. The bidder may move the meeting to an earlier date at the 72-year-old Buffett's home base of Omaha, Nebraska. Buffett, whose $30.5 billion fortune according to Forbes magazine puts him behind Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, has since 2000 donated lunches to benefit Glide, whose chief executive is the Reverend Cecil Williams. Buffett is "a huge fan of Cecil Williams, who is doing an extraordinary job," said Berkshire spokeswoman Kelly Muchemore. "Warren says he enjoys the lunch, and Glide enjoys the money." This is the first year Web auctioneer eBay was enlisted to auction a Buffett lunch, and the first time Buffett donated a lunch outside San Francisco for Glide's benefit. Previous lunches went for $25,000 to $32,000 each, Glide said. Buffett this year had also planned to donate a San Francisco lunch, but it was cancelled at his request. This year's lunch with the Oracle of Omaha cost more than three times the price of one "A" share of Berkshire, which also doesn't come cheap. They closed Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange at $73,100 each.

Related Topics:Shaw Industries Group, Inc.

Print the Article