June 29 (Bloomberg) -- The winner of a $1.68 million steak lunch with Warren Buffett may have gained an enduring relationship with the billionaire and partner Charlie Munger if past victors are any indication.

“I don’t think this is part of the deal, but both Warren and Charlie have been very gracious with access since the lunch,” said Mohnish Pabrai, 45, who won the 2007 auction and has had two meetings with the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. leaders since last June’s lunch. “Warren tries to make sure that you have the winning end of the bargain,” he said in a telephone interview.

Pabrai, who manages $300 million at Pabrai Investment Funds in Irvine, California, paid $650,100 to dine with Buffett at Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York. The 2008 winner, Zhao Danyang of Hong Kong, brought his wife, son and friends for lunch with Buffett last week after paying more than $2.11 million. The three-hour affair included conversations about commodities, corporate governance and the role of central governments in stabilizing currencies, Zhao said.

“It was a great lunch and they were great people,” Buffett, the 78-year-old chairman and head of investments at Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire, said in an interview after last week’s meal. “I’ll see more of them.”

The annual auction held by the San Francisco-based Glide Foundation closed on June 26, after 10 bidders vied for an afternoon with the “Oracle of Omaha.” The high bid trailed Zhao’s record from last year. The winner wishes to stay anonymous for now, said Tod Thorpe, associate director of development at Glide.

Glide’s Mission

Buffett’s late wife volunteered at Glide, a charity that has raised more than $5.92 million from the auctions since they began 10 years ago. The proceeds help Glide offer food, clothes, shelter and health care to low-income individuals and families.

Pabrai flew to New York last year with his wife and two daughters, who were 10 and 12 at the time, to meet the man he calls “my hero.” They were joined by Guy Spier, Pabrai’s bidding partner, and Spier’s wife. They conversed for three hours, including a discussion about philanthropy, because Pabrai and his wife run a foundation in their native India. For their daughters, Buffett brought bags of candy, making them “instantly his friends,” Pabrai said.

Pabrai saw Buffett for a second time last month in Omaha before Berkshire’s annual meeting. He and Spier were invited to the company’s headquarters, where Buffett gave them a tour of his office and showed the investors his old stock-trade tickets and collection of miniature cars.

‘He Just Hung Out’

“I thought he’d be very busy because it was just two days before the annual meeting, but he just hung out,” Pabrai said. “I was very surprised.”

Earlier this month, Pabrai and his wife, Harina Kapoor, were granted another three-hour meeting, this time with Munger, Berkshire’s 85-year-old vice chairman and Buffett’s long-time business partner. Buffett set up the lunch in Los Angeles after Pabrai told him that, while his wife was happy with their meeting in New York, her “true love” was for Charlie.

“Two days later he sent an e-mail to Charlie and copied me,” said Pabrai, who opted not to bid in this year’s auction. “The Munger lunch went longer than the Buffett lunch.”

Buffett, ranked the world’s second-richest man by Forbes magazine, transformed Berkshire from a failing textile maker into an enterprise with businesses ranging from ice cream and underwear to power plants and corporate jet leasing. Berkshire is the biggest investor in companies including Wells Fargo & Co., American Express Co. and Coca-Cola Co.

Glide Event

This year’s auction opened on June 21 and lasted five days, with the final bids broadcast on two screens at a party hosted by Glide at the Hilton San Francisco hotel. The winner gets to bring up to seven friends or family members and typically waits a year before the meeting takes place.

Alan Stillman, the founder of Smith & Wollensky, is donating $10,000 to Glide for the right to host the event. He entered his own unsuccessful bid on the lunch two years ago.

Zhao, general manager of Pureheart Asset Management Co. in Hong Kong, paid more than three times as much as Pabrai for his lunch with Buffett. Zhao said the record-breaking bid was his way of saying thank you, because he owed his firm’s 600 percent return over the past six years to lessons learned from Buffett.

The experience “can’t be measured by money,” Zhao said after the meal. He said Buffett’s advice would “benefit me for my whole life.”

The 2006 winner, Yongping Duan, said he now receives invitations to the annual Sunday brunch that follows Berkshire’s annual meeting. Duan, a California investor and founder of a consumer electronics company in China, paid $620,100 for lunch with Buffett. Duan was at the Hilton event and said in an interview that he just returned from New York, where he joined Zhao for this year’s lunch. Like Pabrai and Zhao, Duan attributes his success to Buffett.

“I use his way of doing things,” he said.

Glide Lunch With Warren Buffett Results:

Year  Winner                                        Winning Bid
2000  Anonymous                                         $25,000
2001  Anonymous                                         $18,000
2002  Edward Jones Co. and 2 Anonymous                  $25,000
2003  David Einhorn, Greenlight Capital                $250,100
2004  Jason Choo, Singapore                            $202,100
2005  Anonymous                                        $351,100
2006  Yongping Duan, California                        $620,100
2007  Mohnish Pabrai, Guy Spier, Harina Kapoor         $650,100
2008  Zhao Danyang                                   $2,110,100
2009  Anonymous                                      $1,680,300

To contact the reporters on this story: Ari Levy in San Francisco at alevy5@bloomberg.net; Erik Holm in New York at eholm2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 29, 2009 00:00 EDT