A small-town US family has sold their Louisiana-based electrical-equipment company Fibrebond to power-management giant Eaton for $1.7 billion—and made sure their 540 full-time workers got a $240 million cut of it. Former CEO Graham Walker wrote a single clause into the deal: 15% of proceeds for the staff, none of whom held any equity.

The average bonus works out to around $443,000 per worker.