Buffett’s annual charity lunch auction nets $2.63 million of Glide

Warren Buffett's annual charity lunch auction this year brought in a record $2.63 million on the final day of the weeklong contest after the bidder who'd already won offered more cash to set the mark.

The revised winning bid for a steakhouse meal with the 80- year-old billionaire was $100 higher than the record set last by last year's unidentified winner. This is 12th time the winning bid amount has gone to San Francisco's Glide charity. However, the victorious bidder, who upped the bid from the $2.35 million which had already won, was not identified, according to a Glide spokesman.

''This money will go to those who are in deep distress,'' Rev. Cecil Williams, Glide's founder, said at an event hosted by the charity last night in San Francisco. ''Thank you to Warren Buffett and to the bidders.'' EBay Inc's website hosts the auction.

Tens of thousands of Buffet's admirer's visit Omaha, Nebraska each year for his Berkshire Hathaway Inc meetings, where shareholders hear Buffet field questions on finance, public policy and life.

The winner of the auction gets to share the table with Buffett at New York's Smith & Wollensky steakhouse and is free to steer the table talk.

Winners of previous auctions have been motivated to bid by Buffett's stature as also the charitable causes that their funds help support.