AN anonymous bidder agreed at auction to pay US$3,456,789 to eat lunch with Warren Buffett, tying the record for the right to dine with one of the world’s most admired investors.

    The money will go to Glide, a San Francisco charity that provides food, health care, and other services to people who are homeless, poor, or struggling with substance abuse.

    The five-day auction on eBay ended Friday night. The winning bid matched the sum paid by an anonymous bidder in 2012, the most expensive single charity item sold on eBay. Buffett has held 17 annual auctions for Glide, raising about US$23.6 million.

    The Rev. Cecil Williams, co-founder of Glide and pastor since 1963 of the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, said Buffett’s involvement has attracted more interest in the charity, helping it fund its US$17 million annual budget. Glide provides services including an estimated 750,000 free meals, 815,000 syringes, and day care and after school programs for 450 children each year.

    “This one was really one of the best we’ve had in my over 50 years,” said Rev. Williams after the auction.

    The successful bidder and up to seven friends can dine with Buffett at the Smith & Wollensky steak house in Manhattan. All topics are fair game, apart from where Buffett will invest next.

    Buffett is the world’s third-richest person, worth US$66.5 billion, Forbes magazine said. He got rich building Berkshire Hathaway Inc. into a conglomerate with roughly 90 businesses including insurance, energy, chemical, apparel, and food companies, plus a railroad. Buffett is donating virtually all of his wealth to charity.

    Indeed, as the Christian Science Monitor’s Cathaleen Chen reported, alongside his charitable efforts to better the lives of fellow citizens, Buffet exudes optimism for the future of the nation’s children. In his annual letter to the shareholders of his company, Berkshire Hathaway, the 85-year-old business magnate wrote that the babies born today will live “far better” than their parents and that people shouldn’t listen to the “negative drumbeat” of this year’s presidential campaigns.

    The auction was created by Buffett’s first wife, Susan, and continued after her death in 2004.(SD-Agencies)