Warren Buffett, Stephen Curry lunch auction fetches $11.5 million for charity

SAN FRANCISCO - A bidder agreed to pay US$9 million (S$11.5 million) at auction to dine with billionaire investor Warren Buffett and basketball superstar Stephen Curry in a charity fund raiser.

The winning bid came in a weeklong auction on eBay that ended on May 14, according to eBay’s website. The winner’s identity could not immediately be determined.

Mr Buffett, Curry and his wife Ayesha Curry will join the winner and up to seven guests chosen by the winner on June 24 in Omaha, Nebraska, where Mr Buffett’s conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway is based.

Proceeds will be divided between the Glide Foundation and Eat. Learn. Play. The non-profits said Mr Buffett will match the winning bid for each of them, boosting the total donation to about US$27 million.

Berkshire, Glide and Eat. Learn. Play. did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours.

Glide is a non-profit in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district that helps people who are poor, homeless and battling substance abuse.

Mr Buffett raised about US$53.2 million for Glide in 21 auctions between 2000 and 2022.

He began supporting Glide after his first wife Susan volunteered there. She died in 2004. The US$19 million winning bid in the 2022 auction remains by far the largest in an eBay charity auction, eBay said.

Eat. Learn. Play. was founded by Stephen and Ayesha Curry, and focuses on nutritious meals, childhood literacy and maintaining physically active lifestyles.

Stephen Curry plays guard for the Golden State Warriors, and is a four-time National Basketball Association champion and two-time Most Valuable Player. Ms Ayesha Curry is an entrepreneur, cookbook author and advocate against childhood hunger.

Mr Buffett has long believed businesses and non-profits can team up to create real change.

The 95-year-old Buffett is Berkshire’s chairman and was its chief executive for 60 years. He is donating nearly all his remaining fortune, estimated at US$143.5 billion by Forbes magazine, to a charitable trust overseen by his three children. REUTERS