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$2.1m for a buffet with Buffett

(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2008-06-30 09:22

It takes millions of dollars to have lunch with someone who controls billions.

A Chinese investment fund manager won the chance to have lunch with billionaire Warren Buffett by bidding $2.1 million in the most expensive charity auction on eBay.

Zhao Danyang, of Hong Kong-based Pure Heart China Growth Investment Fund, won the auction, which ended on Friday evening with a bid of $2,110,100.

A spokeswoman for the Glide Foundation, which receives the proceeds from the auction, identified Zhao as the winner on Saturday. The foundation is a non-profit organization in San Francisco's Tenderloin district that helps serve the poor and homeless people.

Zhao and up to seven friends will dine with Buffett, the 76-year-old chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, at the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York City whenever the two men can schedule it.

The five-day online auction ended on Friday night on eBay Inc's website. After starting at $25,000, a battle broke out between two bidders in the final stretch, with bid prices jumping seven-fold in two hours.

It is the most expensive charity bid in eBay history, topping the $2.1 million paid for a letter to radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, a spokeswoman said.

"It almost feels like a miracle," Glide's founder Reverend Cecil Williams said. "We are amazed and ready to continue our work of breaking the cycle of poverty."

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.

Chinese media reports said Zhao's Pure Heart is the first legal private investment company (usually called China version of hedge fund) in the country.

Zhao graduated from Xiamen University on the Chinese mainland as a system engineer, the Pure Heart website says. He went abroad in 1994, where he honed his investment skills in running industrial enterprises and trading.

He began his career in the securities business in 1996 and has more than 10 years' experience in asset management, and has managed overseas and domestic listed securities.

Zhao is one of the leading players in promoting the philosophy of "selecting securities investment from the view of an industrial investor".

Buffett has been auctioning off lunches online for six years but began auctioning the lunches for Glide off-line in 2000. He offers only one lunch a year.