A Chinese investment fund manager won the chance to have lunch with billionaire Warren Buffett by bidding 2.1 million dollars (£1.05m) in the most expensive charity auction ever held on eBay.
Zhao Danyang of the Hong Kong-based Pureheart China Growth Investment Fund won the auction, which ended Friday evening with a bid of 2,110,100 dollars.
A spokeswoman for the Glide Foundation, which receives all the proceeds from the auction, identified the winner yesterday.
It appears that Zhao and Buffett share a similar investment philosophy.
The auction will provide a significant boost to Glide, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco. The foundation operates on a 12 million dollar (£6m) annual budget, spokeswoman Denise Lamott said.
“It almost feels like a miracle,” Glide’s founder Reverend Cecil Williams said in a statement. “We are amazed and ready to continue our work of breaking the cycles of poverty.”
Last year’s lunch brought in 650,100 dollars (£325,000).
A group of Glide staff members and supporters gathered in a small hotel ballroom on Friday to watch the auction results. Lamott said there were shouts of celebration when the bids topped one million.
“It was absolutely unbelievable,” Lamott said. more
So there you go.. domainers is talking about recession and less sales, while some spend over 2 million bucks for a lunch.
Zhao and up to seven friends will dine with Buffett at the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York City whenever the two men can schedule it.
The investment philosophy Zhao’s fund describes on its website is similar to Buffett’s approach of finding companies with an enduring competitive advantage that are selling for significantly less than they are worth.
Buffett, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is primarily known for his investing success. Berkshire owns more than 60 subsidiaries including insurance, clothing, furniture, jewellery and confectionery companies, restaurants, natural gas and corporate jet firms and has major investments in such companies as Coca-Cola Co., Anheuser-Busch Cos. and Wells Fargo & Co.