New Orleans Saints Forums - blackandgold.com - Cost to lunch with Warren Buffett: $3.5 million

The cost to dine with investor Warren Buffett has apparently spiked in value, with one deep-pocketed bidder forking over nearly $3.5 million during a charity auction.

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The annual auction for a private lunch with the Nebraska billionaire closed following a flurry of activity in the final hours Friday night. In the end, the highest bid was a record-breaking $3,456,789.
The auction benefits the Glide Foundation, which helps the homeless in San Francisco. Buffett has raised more than $11.5 million for the group in 13 past auctions. The event provides a significant portion of Glide's roughly $17 million annual budget that pays for social services to the poor and homeless.
"We just had a most amazing, shocking experience occur in our great city," Glide's founder, the Rev. Cecil Williams, said in a statement Friday night. "We are shouting, dancing, rejoicing and celebrating."
The organization said Friday's winner bidder wished to remain anonymous. Williams said 10 people actively engaged in bidding.
Buffett became one of the world's richest men while building Berkshire Hathaway into a conglomerate. But he says most of the questions he gets at the lunches aren't about investing.
As in past auctions, the bids didn't reach astronomical levels until close to the end. Within the final hour of the auction's 9:30 p.m. CDT closing, bids jumped from $1 million to the final $3.46 million.
Buffett has supported the San Francisco organization ever since his late first wife, Susan, introduced him to Williams. Buffett says Williams is a key reason why Glide has been able to help so many people after the world had given up on them.

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