New York – Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said on Tuesday that media reports that he and Italian real estate agent Alessandro Proto together purchased the island of St. Thomas, southwest of Athens, are “a total fabrication.”
“Until the reports started coming out I had never heard of the guy (Proto) who is making the claims about the Greek Island,” Buffett said in a statement emailed by a spokeswoman.
The newspaper Proto Thema reported the sale on Saturday and various news agencies repeated it, including the Athens-Macedonian News Agency and a Newsweek website.
In an emailed reply to Reuters, Proto denied it had made the statement.
“It’s only when the tide goes down you see who is dressed,” Federica Sala, Proto’s manager assistant, said in the email, alluding to Buffett’s famous quote, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”
“And in this particular case Mr. Proto is dressed and will sell an island in Greece to (Buffett) sooner or later,” Sala said.
As reported by Vos Iz Neias