Policy

Warren Buffett's Multi-Million Dollar Lunch

|

If, like me, you harbor an irrational dislike of stock-picking legend Warren Buffett, this story might make you smile:

A Chinese businessman named Zhao Danyang paid a record $2.1 million in a charity auction on eBay last year to win a lunch date with one of his heroes: Warren E. Buffett […]

[A] day before the lunch, which took place on June 24 at the Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York City, Mr. Zhao told the media he would offer Mr. Buffett a stock tip of his own: a little-known Chinese retailer called WuMart. […]

Even before Mr. Zhao arrived for lunch, shares of WuMart were climbing. By the time he returned to China, the shares were about 25 percent higher and Mr. Zhao's stock holdings in WuMart (which he insists will some day be China's Wal-Mart) were worth about $16 million more.

J.P. Freire wrote about "The Billionaire Apparatchik" back in 2006.