Buffet with Buffett: Could you be the first Brit to take the Sage of Omaha to lunch?
The square mile boasts more than its fair share of well-seasoned lunchers. But post-crisis corporate cost-cutting may have dented even the Sage of Omaha's chances of getting City-types to fork out for a three-hour sit down over steak.
Bidding may have opened for the annual charitable lunch with the world's most famous investor Warren Buffet over the weekend, but it is failing to come close to last year's record $2.3m (£1.6m) shelled out by Chinese businessman Zhu Ye.
At $210,000 for you plus seven selected diners to meet the Berkshire Hathaway founder at his favourite Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in Manhattan, the lunch is still a pricey way of getting some face time and stock tips from the self-made billionaire worth $66.6bn.
Bid: Power lunch with Warren Buffett for the Glide Foundation
Previous winners – some of whom choose to remain anonymous – clearly think it's good value. Fund manager Ted Weschler spent $2.6m on the lunch in 2010, then another $2.6m just one year later. A few months after that Buffett offered him a job.
Jim Halperin and Scott Thomas – the joint winners in 2001 and 2002 – also came back for more, though at $20,000 and $25,000 a pop they wouldn't even get a glass of water with the Wizard at today's prices.
In the 17 years Buffett has been offering out a few hours of his time to anyone rich enough to buy it, none of the named winners have been from the UK. Could this be our year?