Lunch with Buffett comes at a price

NEW YORK (Reuters) - For about $200,000 (108,000 pounds), you can buy two shares of Berkshire Hathaway's stock, or you can have lunch with its chairman -- Warren Buffett.


Buffett, who is the world's second richest person, put himself up for auction on eBay's Web site. The winning bidder, whose name was not disclosed, will be able to invite seven friends to have lunch with Buffett.


This year's price, $202,100, was lower than the $250,100 that a New York investment firm paid for the lunch last year.


Since 2000, Buffett has donated lunches to the Glide Foundation, a charity that offers programs to the poor, hungry and homeless in San Francisco.


"Here is the chance of a lifetime to pick the brain of the one-and-only Warren Buffett," read the description of the item on eBay.


Buffett, known as the "Oracle of Omaha" because of his prescient investment decisions and his hometown, has a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $42.9 billion.


Bidding on the item ended Thursday night San Francisco time.


Steakhouse Smith & Wollensky has agreed to host the lunch.


Berkshire's Class A shares closed at $90,300 in Thursday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.