Business

Mr. Cool: After $5B Goldman investment in 2008, Buffett took grandkids to Dairy Queen

After investing a whopping $5 billion in Goldman Sachs at the height of the financial crisis, famed investor Warren Buffett thought it was time to celebrate — so he took his grand kids to the local Dairy Queen.

Byron Trott, the billionaire investor’s “favorite” investment banker, who was Goldman’s vice chairman of investment banking at the time of the deal, said that Buffett asked not to be disturbed during the ice cream outing.

Trott revealed the quirky incident today in the government’s insider trading case against former Goldman board member Rajat Gupta.

The testimony of Trott, who took the stand in the closely watched case at noon, is being used to show the Manhattan federal court jury the confidentiality surrounding the deal — which he orchestrated.

The government alleges that Gupta improperly leaked the details of the deal to his hedge-fund pal Raj Rajaratnam, along with other tips he gleaned as a director of Goldman and Procter & Gamble.

Trott, wearing a grey suit and blue tie, described Buffett’s September 2008 investment in Goldman, that occurred at a time of “enormous uncertainty, fear and volatility.”

Goldman needed the money to send a positive signal to investors, Trott testified.

While Goldman executives may have been totally absorbed in the moment, Buffett seemed unfazed by the chaos, said Trott. Thus, Buffett took a few hours out of his day before the deal was approved to take his grandkids to Dairy Queen, Trott said.

“Warren had promised to take his kids to Dairy Queen and I was not to interrupt him” until he returned at 2:30 p.m., Trott said.

Trott, who now runs his own firm, BDT Capital Partners,said the deal was hashed out nonetheless in a single day, he testified.

Buffett was called around 10 a.m. or 10:30 am on Sept. 23 because the company wanted to issue stock to raise capital and the bank wanted Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, to be the “cornerstone” investor, jurors were told.

Buffett agreed immediately, although he had just rejected Goldman on a separate but similar offer just a week or two earlier, Trott said.

kwhitehouse@nypost.com