EBay bidder to pay $351,100 for Buffett lunch

updated 8:34 a.m. ET July 1, 2005

OMAHA, Nebraska - Saying “check, please” will cost a bidder in an online auction more than $350,000.

Someone bid $351,100 to have lunch with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, the so-called “Oracle of Omaha,” in an online charity auction that closed at 10 p.m. EDT Thursday on eBay.

There were 110 bids in the auction, which started at $25,000 on June 23.

The winning bidder can take seven friends to lunch with Buffett in Omaha or New York at a mutually agreeable date, time and restaurant.

The bidder’s name was not immediately released and the person may decide to remain anonymous, said Mary Dunbar, a Glide Foundation spokeswoman.

Proceeds go to the Glide Foundation, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco. The foundation’s chief executive, the Rev. Cecil Williams, said Buffett’s late wife Susan introduced her husband to the foundation’s work.

Buffett, who is worth an estimated $44 billion, suggested the lunch auction as a way to raise money for the foundation, Williams said.

Buffett is chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which is based in Omaha.

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