Lunch with Warren Buffett fetches $3.5m at charity auction

New York, June 10 (ANI): The cost to dine with Warren Buffett has sky rocketed in value, with one deep-pocketed bidder forking over nearly 3.5 million dollars during a charity auction.

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 dollars, the New York Post reported.

The auction benefits the Glide Foundation, which helps the homeless in San Francisco. Buffett has raised more than 11.5 million dollars for the group in 13 past auctions.

The event provides a significant portion of Glide's roughly 17 million dollars 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," the New York Post quoted Glide's founder, the Rev. Cecil Williams, as saying in a statement Friday night.

"We are shouting, dancing, rejoicing and celebrating," Williams said.

The organization said Friday's winner wished to remain anonymous. Williams said 10 people actively engaged in bidding.

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 dollars to the final 3.46 million dollars.

Buffett has supported the San Francisco organization ever since his late first wife, Susan, introduced him to Williams.

Buffett said that Williams is a key reason why Glide has been able to help so many people after the world had given up on them.

"He's changed thousands of lives that would not have been changed otherwise," Buffett said before the bidding closed.

The previous four winning bids have all exceeded 2 million dollars with records set every year. Last year's winner, hedge fund manager Ted Weschler, paid 2,626,411 dollars. (ANI)