Warren Buffett lunch goes for US$2.3m on eBay

Warren Buffett lunch goes for US$2.3m on eBay

A PRIVATE lunch with Warren Buffett sold for US$2.3 million (S$2.8 million) on Friday night when online bidding ended, falling short of last year's winning bid of US$2.6 million that set a record for the most expensive charity item ever sold on eBay.

Organisers didn't immediately release the identity of the winner, whose exact bid was US$2,345,678. All proceeds go to the Glide Foundation, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco.

Mr Buffett will spend several hours discussing whatever it is the winner would like to talk about, traditionally at New York's Smith and Wollensky steak house. The only topics the billionaire chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway will not broach are potential future investments.

'I've met a lot of nice people through this,' Mr Buffett said.

Last year's record-setting auction was won by an anonymous American who placed the US$2.6 million bid. The most expensive item ever sold on eBay was a jet that drew US$4.9 million, eBay spokesman Amanda Miller said. In 2009, Canadian investment firm Salida Capital paid US$1.68 million to dine with Mr Buffett. In 2008, a Chinese investment fund manager paid US$2.11 million.

The annual lunch auction is a huge revenue generator at Glide, which operates on a US$17 million annual budget. The charity estimates that Buffett has raised nearly US$9 million over the past 12 years through auctioned lunches.