Warren Buffett Charity Lunch Goes for Record $2.6 Million
An anonymous bidder topped his or her own winning offer to set a new record in this year’s Warren Buffett charity lunch auction. The high bid at the scheduled end of the auction was $2.63 million.
The final bid was actually $2,345,678, but the anonymous winner added to that after the auction to surpass last year’s winning bid by $100, organizers said. A total of two bidders entered eight bids in the eBay auction, which started last Sunday. Interest was much lower than in 2010, when nine bidders made a total of 77 bids for the luncheon.
This year’s contest is the 12th benefiting San Francisco’s Glide, an organization that benefits poverty-stricken residents of the San Francisco Bay area. Glide, a favorite charity of Buffett’s late first wife, has garnered almost $11 million since the first auction in 2000 went for $25,000. Buffett’s generosity, and that of the winning bidders, has provided meals, health care, job training, rehabilitation and housing support to help lift people out of these hard times, Reverend Cecil Williams, Glide’s founder, said in a statement.
The winner will have lunch with the so-called Oracle of Omaha and up to seven guests of the winner’s choice at the Smith & Wollensky steak house in New York City at a date to be determined.
