The billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. drove this year’s bidding last Friday, drawing in much of the enermous amount ($1.9m) in the final hour of the auction, conducted by worldwide auction site Ebay. Even the last three minutes remained excessively eventful: the bids rose from $2.5 million to a final tally of $2,626,311.
According to Ebay spokeswoman Kathy Chui, the winning bid was made using the website’s automatic bidding application. The “Power lunch for 8 with Warren Buffet” as advertised by Ebay, may seem the world’s most expensive lunch for some, but also the most valuable for others. The bidding went on for four days, drawing in eight bidders and 62 bids altogether.
This year’s anonymous highest bidder is breaking a tradition of public winners, such as Canadian investment group Salida Capital, that paid $1.68m last year or the record’s previous holder, investor Zhao Danyang.
According to Reverend Williams, there is a substantial, 30% rise in the need for Glide Foundation’s services since the beginning of the economic downturn, while the foundation have seen a 20% dwindle in the amount of donations.
“We are going to put the money where it counts,” Rev. Williams told journalists. His foundation was picked the grantee of Warren Buffet’s charity lunch because the investor mogul’s late wife Susan, had been a volunteer at Glide. especially services for young people who were being drawn into violence.
Unlike in previous years, Buffet didn’t make it to San Francisco this time to celebrate the auction’s countdown. The winner of this year’s auction is allowed to bring a party of up to eight to the lunch, which typically takes place at Mr. Buffett’s favorite New York City steakhouse, Smith & Wollensky. Previous winners agreed that the lunch, during which participants covered various investment subjects, proved “helpful”.