(EBay has since made bidder names anonymous; his approach would not work today).
Mr. Bachchan's coat, which cost £5,000 $$7,950) to make, was auctioned for £10,500 to a bidder named "Mrs. Gandhi," with proceeds going to Breakthrough, a global human rights organization.
"I would be really, really hopeful from what I'm hearing, what I've been told, that there would be a preferred bidder named this week.
By contrast, the Applicant Auction works on an ascending-clock model, which normally works much like an eBay auction: bidders name a maximum price they are willing to pay, and the auction price rises at each stage of the auction, until all bidders but the winner have dropped out.
Neither the bidders' names nor other details were announced.
The bidders named in the report were BC Partners, Apax Partners and Paribas Affaires Industrielles.
No bidders' names have been released by officials, although some companies have said they intend to bid.
The winning bidder's name was not disclosed by Bonhams, but the auction house revealed it had gone to a UK-based private collector.
Indeed, the bidder's name was barely mentioned, until Mr Eisner joked that "we're buying Comcast" when asked about possible acquisitions.
One possible bidder whose name emerged Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the bidding process, was David Einhorn, a Manhattan hedge-fund manager; he grew up in New Jersey and Milwaukee and masqueraded one Halloween as the former Met Dave Kingman when he was a five or six-year-old, he told the Wall Street Journal.
