Warren Buffett charity lunch fetches winning bid of $19 million By Reuters

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – A fortunate, and sure rich, individual bid greater than $19 million to dine with Warren Buffett, within the twenty first and closing time that the billionaire businessman auctioned a personal lunch to profit a San Francisco charity.

The successful bid within the eBay (NASDAQ:) public sale that ended on Friday evening far surpassed the earlier document of $4.57 million, paid in 2019 by cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Solar, though the brand new winner’s identification couldn’t instantly be decided.

Proceeds profit Glide, a nonprofit in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district that helps the poor, homeless or these battling substance abuse. Glide affords meals, shelter, HIV and hepatitis C assessments, job coaching and kids’s applications.

Buffett, 91, the chairman and chief govt of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:) Inc, has raised greater than $53.2 million for Glide within the 21 auctions, which started in 2000.

An eBay spokeswoman stated the lunch was the costliest merchandise ever offered on the corporate’s web site to profit charity.

No auctions had been held in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Buffett turned a supporter of Glide after his first spouse Susan, who died in 2004, launched him to the charity, the place she had been volunteering.

He has additionally pledged to present away practically all of his fortune. Buffett was value $93.4 billion on Friday, rating seventh worldwide, in response to Forbes journal.

This 12 months’s public sale winner and as much as seven friends will dine with Buffett on the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in Manhattan.

Buffett will discuss nearly something, however not the place he could make investments subsequent.

Hedge fund managers David Einhorn and Ted Weschler are amongst earlier public sale winners.

Weschler turned a Berkshire portfolio supervisor after paying a mixed $5.25 million to win the 2010 and 2011 auctions.

Berkshire owns dozens of corporations together with the BNSF railroad, Geico automobile insurance coverage, power, manufacturing and retail companies, and shares resembling Apple Inc (NASDAQ:) and Financial institution of America Corp (NYSE:).

Buffett nonetheless owns practically 16% of the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate, regardless of having donated greater than half of his shares since 2006, together with $4 billion on June 14.