Inside The World Of Barry Sherman
Business and family intertwined for the billionaire
“The thought once came to my mind, why didn’t they just hire someone to knock me off?” Barry Sherman, a Canadian philanthropist and owner of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country, once said of his competitors. While on the surface, he seemed to be a genial and kind man, there was more than meets the eye to him.
Those doing business with him saw him as something of a villain. Barry never shied away from a fight. Even if the odds were stacked against him, he would take a case to court and argue it until there were no more alternatives. When he lost, he paid up. But there was always another round with him.
Barry would get into a bare knuckle fight over drugs that his company was producing. There were often fights over patents from his competitors. And in one case, there were allegations of corporate espionage.
He took the same tact with his family.
One side of his family saw him as a thief, someone who stole a company and took the information from it to launch his own empire. A court battle ensued and ended just before Barry and his wife were murdered.
This willingness to fight took a toll on his home life. His children knew him as an absentee father. Often…
