Former President Bill Clinton has ended his high-profile business connection to his friend Ronald Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos. by walking away from a final payment that was once estimated at up to $20 million.

While the former president could have claimed additional money from Yucaipa, he apparently has decided not to, said a person familiar with the matter. He apparently made the decision early this year.

Beginning in 2002, Mr. Clinton served as an adviser to two domestic investment funds run by closely held Los Angeles-based Yucaipa. In that role he had an agreement in which he would receive a final payment based on a calculation of how much profits the investments had produced.

Mr. Clinton began disengaging from his Yucaipa connections in 2007 in anticipation of Hillary Clinton’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mrs. Clinton’s confirmation process for her appointment as secretary of state in January sparked interest in Congress and the press concerning the multimillion-dollar donations her husband’s charitable foundation, the William J. Clinton Foundation, had received from foreign leaders and businessmen. But his Yucaipa connection attracted scant scrutiny during his wife’s confirmation process despite it being Mr. Clinton’s most direct financial tie to a foreign leader.

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