It wasn’t a record, but $2,345,678 is still a lot of money for lunch with nine people — even if one of them is billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
The apparent winning bid in the 12th annual lunch with Buffett was announced Friday at a fundraising event in San Francisco. The winning bid was made Monday, when an anonymous bidder topped the previous offer by $100, resulting in the bid of sequential ascending numerals that held up for the remaining four days of bidding.
The winning bid was less than $300,000 short of the $2.6 million record for the fundraiser set last year.
There were seven bids in the auction on eBay, with the first bid of $25,000 coming Sunday. Bidding ended at 10:30 p.m. ET Friday.
The winner will have lunch with the so-called "Oracle of Omaha" and up to seven guests of the winner’s choice at the Smith & Wollensky steak house in New York City at a date to be determined.
The proceeds will go towards Glide, an organization that benefits poverty-stricken residents of the San Francisco Bay area.
"We do raise money, and money counts, so I urge people to unbutton their wallet, to pull out a check, to reach into the purse, whatever it takes, and contribute," said Buffett, in a video on Glide’s website.
