Sioux City Journal – Last year’s winning bid for lunch with legendary investor Warren Buffett topped $2.1 million, but given the economic turmoil, who knows if this year’s bidding will approach that level.

Yet Buffett has built a devoted following as demonstrated by the crowd of 35,000 people at his recent Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, and he offers only one lunch per year.

The online bidding begins at $25,000 Sunday in a charity auction that benefits the Glide Foundation, which provides social services to the poor and homeless in San Francisco. The bids will likely escalate significantly before the auction closes Friday evening at 9 p.m. CDT.

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Ospraie Management, the US hedge fund led by Dwight Anderson, has seen about $1bn (€678m) in value being wiped out of Ospraie Fund, its biggest, over the last 12 months amid misplaced bets on commodities, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The fund, which is believed to have peaked near $3.8bn in assets late last year, has fallen more than 20% this year as of this week, continuing a downfall that amounted to a negative 13% return in July alone.

Overall, Ospraie, in which Lehman Brothers controls a 20% stake, manages about $9bn in assets. Its investment strategy is focused on energy, financials, retail and health care.

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