As the last chance to lunch with Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett hit the $3 million mark, the investing legend himself announced a $4 billion charitable giveaway.
Buffett will donate proceeds of 14,412,000 Berkshire B shares BRK.B, -3.72% (converted from 9,608 A shares BRK.A, -3.49%) to five charities, the company said on Tuesday. The largest number of more than 11 million shares were donated to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, followed by more than 1.1 million shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, and the rest to the Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett and the NoVo Foundation.
Buffett, who has vowed to give away 99% of his wealth, now owns 229,016 A shares and 276 B shares worth more than $95 billion. He donated more than half of the company’s shares.
Meanwhile, the last annual lunch bid with the Berkshire Hathaway chairman is heating up for the first time since the two-year hiatus from the pandemic, with all proceeds going to San Francisco-based Helping the Homeless Glide, a charity for the homeless.
The winner of the lunch buffet and up to seven guests will dine at one of their favorite restaurants, Smith & Wollensky in New York City, which raised more than $34 million to support Glide.
Ebay EBAY, -5.58% The auction started on Sunday with a starting bid of $25,000 and reached $3,000,100 on Wednesday, attracting eight bidders so far. Calls for entries will close on Friday at 10:30pm. Easter time.
While bids tend to heat up on the last day, the total bid so far is well below the record $4.57 million paid by cryptocurrency firm TRON founder Justin Sun during his last pre-pandemic lunch. The amount surpassed the previous record of $3,456,789 for dinner with the investing legend.
The bid also comes at a particularly difficult time for investors, as inflation concerns pushed the S&P 500 SPX down -3.25% and the Fed is expected to push for a possible 75 basis point rate hike on Wednesday. Berkshire Hathaway’s stock has not been spared the market crisis, down 7% so far this year.
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