The winner of an auction bid for a lunch date with 91-year-old billionaire, Warren Buffett, is to pay $19 million.
At the official exchange rate of N415 to a dollar, that is about N7.8 billion.
Lunch with the billionaire’s time was this year’s most expensive item at the auction for GLIDE, a charity organisation based in San Francisco, in the United States of America.
This is the 21st time the world’s 7th richest man would be volunteering his time as an auction bid and the final time he will have lunch with the highest bidder for his time.
This year’s auction winner and up to seven guests will dine with Buffett at the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in Manhattan, where the billionaire will talk about almost anything, but not where he may invest next.
Previous auction winners include Hedge fund managers David Einhorn and Ted Weschler. Mr Weschler became a Berkshire portfolio manager after paying a combined $5.25 million to win the 2010 and 2011 auctions to dine with the billionaire.
The GLIDE auction started in 2000 and has held every year apart from 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19. The billionaire has participated in all, offering his time at the auction and meeting with the winners as agreed.
So far, the billionaire has raised $53.2 million dollars for the auction.
The money raised from the auction is used to offer meals, shelter, HIV and hepatitis C tests, job training and children’s programmes.
This year’s price is also the most expensive that has ever been paid for lunch with the billionaire since he began volunteering his time at auctions for the charity organization.
The last time the auction held in 2019, cryptocurrency entrepreneur, Justin Sun, paid $4.57 million.
Buffet developed a lot of interest and passion for charity after it was introduced to him by his first wife Susan, who died in 2004.
He has pledged to give away nearly all of his $93.4 billion fortune, which is his current net worth, according to Forbes magazine.
