Clif Bar Billionaires Reap 2,400% Gain by Rebuffing Early Buyout

Gary Erickson was offered a tantalizing sum from Quaker Oats in 2000 to sell Clif Bar & Co., his upstart energy-bar maker: $120 million.

He walked away. As the company’s website put it: “CLIF Is Not For Sale.”

Twenty-two years later, that calculus has changed. Erickson and his wife, Kit Crawford, this week accepted a $2.9 billion buyout from snack giant Mondelez International Inc. Once completed, the acquisition will catapult the California-based couple into the class of self-made billionaires.

Kit Crawford and Gary Erickson

Photographer: Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images

By rebuffing the earlier offer and taking Mondelez’s deal, Erickson and Crawford have banked a 2,400% gain from keeping ...