Succession: The battle begins
Son Jonathon and daughter Alexandra face off in a struggle for control of the multibillion-dollar empire left in the wake of Barry Sherman’s murder
I popped my head into Jack Kay’s office at Apotex in the early fall of 2018, looking for a detail to help flesh out what seemed an apocryphal story: That murdered billionaire inventor/businessman Barry Sherman had driven a series of rusty, poorly maintained convertibles. Kay had been generous with his time, tutoring me about pharmaceuticals on Saturday afternoons, bringing me into the world he and Sherman shared for 35 years.
Looking up from what had been Sherman’s desk, Kay, muscled and lean from daily 6 a.m. workouts, was unusually frosty. I had just been down the hall talking to Joanne Mauro, Barry’s executive assistant for 42 years. In addition to
Mauro describing the tremendous impact her late boss had on her — “I don’t let anything bother me anymore” — she said Sherman loaned her his car one day and the brake pedal sank to the floor.
Kay grumbled at my car question. “The trustees, the family, Jonathon, none of them appreciate you and the Star trying to unseal Barry’s will. I can’t talk to you.” As I walked out into the corridor, Kay grumbled again, then, ever the gentleman, rattled off the car makes: “Oldsmobile Cutlass, Buick Reatta, Chrysler Sebring and the Mustang GT.”
This was the first inkling I had that the Sherman children, at least son Jonathon, had taken over after the brutal murders of Barry and his wife Honey. The couple were found dead in their basement swimming pool room on Friday, Dec. 15, 2017. Police say they have an active and ongoing investigation into the “targeted” double murder.
Today, the estate of Barry and Honey Sherman is at the centre of a struggle for control being waged among family members and financial advisers. One of the Sherman daughters, Alexandra, likened it to a Shakespearean tragedy; others have compared it to the HBO series “Succession.”
Now, all three Sherman daughters — Lauren, Alexandra and Kaelen — are aligned with family holding company president Alex Glasenberg. Son Jonathon is on the other side.
Late Friday, a spokesperson for the Sherman sisters reacted to comments made to the Star by Jonathon, who told the newspaper he wants to get rid of Glasenberg, and that his sisters are “beholden” to Glasenberg. Through spokesperson Meghan Lauber, the sisters said:
“Mr. Glasenberg is an experienced and competent executive and manager of the business. We are grateful to Mr. Glasenberg for his continued work and diligence and we support his role managing the Sherman family business.”
The family fortune that is at issue was built by Barry, an engineer who was on his way to work at NASA in the 1960s (he earned a master’s and a PhD in just over two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) when he decided to pursue generic pharmaceuticals in Canada. Though he had no background in chemistry, he solved a problem of crumbling vitamin C tablets at his first generic drug company — and as his first business partner said, he “never looked back.”
Until that car conversation nine months after the murders, Kay, the CEO of Barry’s generic drug giant Apotex and one of four trustees of the Sherman estate, seemed to be very much in charge of his late friend’s $10 billion empire.
(That chat with Kay happened soon after the Star began its attempt to unseal the Sherman estate documents, files that are normally public in Canada but were sealed by a judge at the estate’s request. The Supreme Court of Canada will likely make its ruling later this year. In an interview, Jonathon said while he, one of his father’s estate trustees, initially wanted the estate documents kept secret he has changed his mind and is now hopeful the Star is successful in unsealing them, as they contain information he wants the newspaper to see. “My M.O. was f--- Donovan, I don’t want him prying into my life … my own personal view has changed … there is nothing in there that is worth keeping secret.”)
A few months passed and then, a year and a day after the murders, Kay was sitting in his office at Apotex in the afternoon when Jonathon walked in with Apotex president Jeff Watson, an ex-Canadian Football League offensive lineman hired years before by Kay. Jonathon had explained to me in an interview that by late 2018 he had a list of grievances against Kay.
Adjacent offices
According to Jonathon, Kay was “micromanaging” Apotex. Also, Kay was insisting on continuing Barry’s plan to invest $50 million to expand a Florida drug factory Barry had purchased not long before he died.
Jonathon disliked Kay’s regular lunches with Frank D’Angelo, a Toronto entrepreneur Barry had backed for more than a decade. It also perturbed Jonathon that Kay had moved into his father’s office (after the police tape came down in early
2018). For decades, the two men had adjacent offices with a connecting door always left open, and Sherman assistant Mauro recalls they would “communicate” by yelling good-naturedly back and forth about the business, life and religion.
In the corridor between their two offices were scales, test tubes and an incubator — where Barry did his own drug formulations despite having hundreds of scientists on staff. Kay, Sherman friends say, was “the brother Barry never had.”
Deciding it was time for a change, with Watson by his side, Jonathon fired the then 78-year-old Kay and escorted him out the door. Jonathon says he did this for the good of the company and that he “recorded the entire episode.” He bristled at my description of the event in a 2018 article, saying it made it seem as if he had picked “him up by the lapels.”
Watson’s name (now both CEO and president) would replace Kay’s on a plaque in the executive parking lot the next day, beside a makeshift shrine of memorial flowers and cards where Sherman had until recently parked his old Mustang.
By removing Kay, Jonathon had made a bold step toward controlling his father’s empire. In a late-December interview, Jonathon said his hope, in all of his actions, is that one day he will be able to bring in “completely independent people to manage my family’s business.”
But there have been stumbling blocks, both legally and within his family. Legally, Kay was still one of the four trustees of the Sherman estate, along with Jonathon, family holding company boss Alex Glasenberg, and Brad Krawczyk, the husband of Jonathon’s sister Alexandra.
Jonathon said in firing Kay he
had the “unanimous” support of fellow trustees Glasenberg and Krawczyk. Glasenberg, in his response to questions from the Star about Kay’s firing, said he was “disappointed that Mr. Kay was not able to stay on with the Apotex group.” Insiders say Kay was never invited to trustee meetings after he was fired. He later resigned as trustee.
The stumbling block in the family was Alexandra. A nurse by training, with no business experience, she said she became concerned a year after the murders with decisions her brother was making. Decisions, she said, that did not fall in line with the “values and principles” of their late father. “His employees were treated like family,” she said.
Jonathon, though, has long maintained that he treats employees and people in general well. He said as much in an email to his father in 2015, writing “what gives me the greatest pleasure at work is being overly nice to people when they may not expect it, and to see their reactions.”
The firing of Kay did not sit well with Alexandra. This was a man she and her siblings had grown up knowing as one of their father’s best friends. Recalling the months leading up to the firing, she said “Jack and Jon were fighting … like two bulls butting heads.”
She decided to back away from both of them. She said her brother had also suggested he was suspicious that Kay was somehow involved in the murders, which she said is “ridiculous.” On that issue, Jonathon has told me he was not “telling people Jack did it,” just that he had “concerns” about Jack. For his part, Kay has said it is “silly” to think he had anything to do with the murder of his best friend and someone he had
worked so closely with for so many years.
As time went on, Alexandra became concerned her brother was “power crazy” and “trying to take control of everything.” She and her two sisters had earlier balked — successfully — at Jonathon’s suggestion that he help them manage their quarter of the inheritance. Jonathon has said he was simply looking out for his sisters, who did not have his business experience.
As the Star reported Tuesday, Barry’s will decreed that should he die, and Honey survive, she would have access to all “net income” from his multibilliondollar estate. With Honey and Barry both dead, the full estate, assets and net income of holdings, passed to the four children — Jonathon, Lauren, Alexandra and Kaelen. Overseeing this were the now three estate trustees, Jonathon, Glasenberg and Krawczyk.
Shifting allegiances
Sherman company insiders say allegiances have shifted from time to time due to the people involved. Glasenberg is Krawczyk’s boss at Sherfam. Krawczyk is married to sister Alexandra, though they are separated. Jonathon and Krawczyk are friends — they travelled together to Israel in 2019 to support wounded Israeli soldiers.
Jonathon says that while Glasenberg originally supported him, Glasenberg is no longer in his corner and is now firmly on the side of the three sisters. He says Glasenberg has “made them believe that if he walks out the door we are all f---ed. They are beholden to him.” (In their statement Friday, the sisters said this is not true.)
Glasenberg has worked for Barry Sherman’s firms for 31 years, first at Apotex, then at Sherfam, the family holding company where he is president. The office is based in a nondescript Woodbridge building. Until this past week, Glasenberg has maintained a low profile. In response to some questions the Star sent, he provided responses.
Glasenberg told me in an email this week that he has been “carrying out my duties in the best interests of the corporations, estate and all of the Sherman family, including Jonathon Sherman.” He added, “I am confident that Jonathon Sherman’s sisters have supported my work and the work of all the companies’ advisers and management to run the companies profitably and maximize their value.”
In an interview, Jonathon told the Star he had not seen Glasenberg since March of 2020 and that Glasenberg was “refusing to hold meetings because I ask difficult questions.”
Glasenberg’s lawyer, Chris Pa- liare, told the Star in a letter Friday that Glasenberg has not met with any “directors, trust
ees or colleagues” physically since March, due to the pandemic. He said Glasenberg and Jonathon have attended “several” telephone or videoconference meetings during that time. Further, Paliare said that in Glasenberg’s view, Jonathon Sherman “does not ask difficult questions” and at no time did Glasenberg refuse to hold meetings.
Sherman insiders say that soon after the murders, Jonathon suggested his own business partner, Adam Paulin, take an office at Sherfam to oversee its activities. Paulin and Jonathon have the Green Storage selfstorage company together — funded with $125 million from Barry Sherman — and Jonathon has said he relies heavily on Paulin for his business acumen. (Paulin has business degrees from both Ivey at Western University and the Schulich School of Business at York.)
Glasenberg disagreed with Jonathon’s plan to bring in Paulin, insiders say. “Glasenberg said if Paulin was in, he was out.” Such is Glasenberg’s sway, that Paulin did not take an office at Sherfam. (Glasenberg told me he does not recall this.)
In their statement to the Star late Friday, the three Sherman sisters said “we do not believe that Mr. Paulin would be a qualified or appropriate addition to the management team of the Sherman family companies.”
The Star has tried to speak to Paulin over the past two years, but he has not responded to requests for comment.
According to insiders, Paulin might also have been one of Barry’s estate trustees if Jonathon had his way. When Barry Sherman was changing his trustees from eight to four in early 2017, Jonathon suggested Paulin as a trustee. “Barry said no way,” according to the insider.
Jockeying for position
By early 2019, the battle lines were drawn between Jonathon and Alexandra (sisters Lauren and Kaelen have not shown an interest in actively joining the fight, beyond supporting Alexandra).
Jonathon told me “people” are manipulating Kaelen and, as for Lauren, he said she knows she will be financially secure whether she puts in “effort” or does not. Jonathon said he is also well aware that in this ongoing fight there are many people “jockeying” for their own position. Neither Kaelen nor Lauren have responded to interview requests from the Star.
The Sherman empire extends well beyond Apotex. In years
past, Barry Sherman has had ownership in a major Canadian drugstore chain, a Muskoka resort, numerous apartment buildings and investments as diverse as a beer company and what will be one of Canada’s tallest condominium towers at Bloor and Yonge streets in Toronto. Sherfam is a private company and the Star has no access to a list of current holdings.
One of the battlegrounds over control is charity. Barry and Honey Sherman were well known in the world of philanthropy, donating to both Jewish and other causes. Charity watchers say the four Sherman children agree to continue the giving legacy — but there are disputes over where the money will go.
With Jonathon focusing his efforts on the business of Sherfam and Apotex, Alexandra has taken up the mantle of the Sherman charitable foundations. In 2019, Alexandra refused to approve a $40- to 50million plan Jonathon and one of his business partners, Jonathan Tkatch, had to build a “premium” hockey rink. (Jonathon Sherman and Tkatch have a mortgage company called Harlo Financial, set up just before the murders. Jonathon said in an interview he and partner Adam Paulin “had some cash sitting around for projects.”)
According to emails between Jonathon and Tkatch in April 2019, Jonathon said the hockey rink idea was a plan to build a “premium facility with additional features like training gyms and rehab in order to attract the premium customers to use the facility during the ‘downtime’ (like summer when the leagues are off ).” Under the plan, Tkatch wrote, a new Sherman charity would be created to own the rink and Jonathon would have “long-term oversight of the facility.”
In an email describing the rink situation, Alexandra said the plan was “definitely not within the budget or the mandate of our foundations and not at all in line with my parents’ philosophies.”
At the time, she said she was presiding over rolling out the ongoing $60 million commitment their parents had made to funding projects with the UJA (United Jewish Appeal). At Barry and Honey’s instigation, and with their financial support, a major redevelopment of an old Jewish recreational and cultural centre has taken place in the north end of Toronto, now called the Sherman Campus in their honour.
When Alexandra said no to the hockey facility, it set off what has become a very caustic relationship between brother and sister.
Jonathon wrote to Alexandra in 2019 suggesting that she step down, even just for a short period, from her job as president of the Sherman charities.
“I do have a big problem with the fact that you have taken control of the foundations, and now you won’t answer my calls to discuss foundation-related things,” Jonathon wrote his sister. “I am not an outsider bugging you for money like the hundreds of calls we get.”
He proposed a solution: “I think you should temporarily give up control of the foundations so that the rest of us can continue to operate and make decisions.”
Different approaches
Alexandra rejected that idea, and has retained control over the Sherman family foundations, insiders say. Jonathon said his sister and father had very different approaches to charity. He said in his opinion, his father was interested in the “tax credits,” while his sister wants to “give it all away.”
Recently, through a charity called the Krawczyk Family Foundation, Alexandra and Brad pledged $2 million to an Indigenous initiative, the Anishnawbe Health Toronto health centre. As the Star has reported, in addition to a Sherman family charitable foundation created years ago by Barry and Honey, each of the four children now has his or her own
charitable foundation.
Jonathon has noted that the rift between himself and Alexandra coincided with a time when, he said, she began suggesting he was “implicated” in the murder of their parents. He dismisses that suggestion. “I am the only person who knows I was not involved.”
(Toronto homicide detectives say they have numerous persons of interest in their investigation, which they will not identify. Police say the investigation is “active and ongoing.”)
On the issue of Sherfam/Apotex business decisions, Jonathon has had some successes. Among them, in early 2019, Apotex sold the Florida drug plant Barry Sherman had purchased in 2017, hoping to build a U.S. manufacturing plant, mainly for opioid-based painkillers that have to be made in the U.S. and cannot be imported from Canada. Jonathon said he disagreed with Jack Kay’s insistence that more money be invested. A Florida business journal article said the plant was sold at a loss of $12 million to Apotex.
European divisions of Apotex have also been sold off and insiders say the Sherman family would like to sell the whole company. Apotex will not comment on whether the company is for sale, as Bloomberg reported in 2019.
Ontario corporation records list three members of the board of directors for Sherfam: Jonathon, Glasenberg and Krawczyk. In our December interview, Jonathon said Krawczyk (his brother-in-law) is siding with Glasenberg on business issues. He (Jonathon) said he was going to go to court for an “oppression remedy” but now they are in “mediation” over the issue of control of Sherfam and, by extension, Apotex.
“My ultimate goal is (Glasenberg) off the board,” and then he will bring in independent board members to manage the family business. Jonathon said there is a “narrative” that he, Jonathon, is trying to control everything, which he said is untrue.
“I can’t get rid of (Glasenberg) because he has the support of my three sisters,” Jonathon told me.
In an email response Friday to questions about Jonathon’s comment, Glasenberg said “I have not ‘made’ Mr. Sherman’s sisters ‘believe’ anything about my value to the company. I have a good relationship with each of the sisters, but I cannot speak for them. Each sister is capable
of making her own decision as to who is able to best manage the interests of the Sherman family companies, and sit on the board of directors.” Glasenberg also said that his fellow estate trustee Brad Krawczyk is “carrying out his duties properly and independently, guided by his own business judgment.”
A complicating factor in this battle over succession is that all sides — siblings and executives — are communicating through lawyers. Jonathon has a former New York prosecutor Robert Seiden and Toronto corporate lawyer Jon Levin and his team from Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, plus a retired Toronto Police inspector assisting what he describes as his efforts to learn who killed his parents.
Shared information
“My parents gave us everything and if I have to give everything back to find answers I will,” explains Jonathon. He has his own theory (he said he has shared information with the police) but does not want to state it publicly because he will have a “target on his back.” In what he describes as his own investigation of the case, Jonathon said he has discovered information that “really scares the s--t out of me.”
For her part, Alexandra has hired high-profile criminal lawyer John Rosen to liaise with police. She said she initially hired him to communicate on her behalf with criminal lawyer Brian Greenspan, who the Sherman estate hired in the early days to lead a private investigation. Alexandra said she wanted the private investigation to end and the fruits of its work to be passed on to police. This was done over a series of months and Greenspan and his private team are no longer involved.
The estate is represented by a team of lawyers, Tim Youdan, Chantelle Cseh, Eli Roth and others, all with the Toronto law firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP. Sherman daughters Lauren and Kaelen are also represented by counsel.
There are dozens, maybe even hundreds of lawyers working on other parts of the Sherman empire, dealing with patent litigations left over from Barry’s aggressive approach to the generic drug world.
For the time being, the issue of succession at Sherfam is up in the air. Putting control aside, family members and lawyers have been dealing with the nuts and bolts of dividing up the wealth.
The first step was accounting
for any outstanding loans — all interest free — from the “Bank of Barry,” the term Sherman family and friends used to describe the holdings of the generous patriarch. This was largely a bookkeeping function as each of the four beneficiaries would be receiving substantial payouts from available cash. In Jonathon’s case, he said he used the first “distributions” he received to repay to Sherfam the $125 million loaned interest free to Green Storage and his other endeavours.
Jonathon said the same happened for his sisters, but he did not provide amounts or details and acknowledged that less had been loaned to his sisters.
The majority of what insiders estimate is a $10-billion estate (including, sources say, $1 billion offshore) is tied up in Apotex and numerous real-estate assets. The Sherman children are entitled to receive the net income from these assets, insiders say, which is what Honey would have received had she lived. The children are also each entitled to one quarter of the entire estate, when and if those assets (Apotex being the largest) are sold.
One person who believes money should flow to her and her family is Mary Shechtman, Honey’s sister and best friend. She assisted the Shermans with real-estate purchases and renovations and Barry, in return, provided money for her to purchase some properties. Mary says that other real-estate holdings she owns were purchased using conventional financing from banks, which she says differentiates herself from others in the extended Sherman family.
Visiting Mary
In August of 2020, I visited Mary in her spacious, well-appointed Forest Hill home. Though more than three years have passed, she remains devastated at the loss of Honey and Barry. Her home is not far from where Honey (with Mary’s help and Barry’s financial support) was planning to build a $30million mansion. That property, an empty building lot, was sold for $7.4 million last year by the Sherman estate.
Barry and Honey had a meeting at Apotex to discuss architectural plans the afternoon of the day they would be killed. In police search warrant documents, which record interviews with people who last saw the Shermans alive, one of the architects recalls how Barry, known for strong opinions, was indicating his preference for sliding doors over French doors — a sign to many that it was just an ordinary day.
Mary has been largely excommunicated from the extended Sherman family — not welcome at Kaelen’s wedding, no spot arranged for her at a community tribute to her beloved sister. She knows the Sherman children are angry with her, but still feels sympathy for them and a closeness because, when they were young, she often looked after them and travelled with them.
In her eulogy to her sister and brother-in-law, Mary gave her recollections.
“Barry was a role model and mentor. There was never a day or time he didn’t ask about my children. How are they? What are they doing? Checking up on them, making sure that they were fine. He’d love them because he was their uncle, but also because he was one of the most loving, caring, giving men you’ll ever hope to meet in your life. Their legacy will live on.”
Of her sister Honey, Mary said: “Honey was the best sister anyone could ever imagine … she just wanted to make everybody happy. She just wanted to give everything to everybody … she loved my children like her own.”
Mary remarked on how, when her children were sick, Honey brought them soup. And told mourners, in a rare moment of levity at the funeral, how “these two brilliant people could not figure out a VCR.”
As with many issues related to this story, money and the spending of money is a sore point. Mary knows the Sherman children were upset that she chartered a private jet — at Sherman family expense — to fly from Miami to Toronto when news of the murders reached her.
Then there was a Disney World trip a couple of months after the murders. Distraught and on medication to help her cope, she kept saying to people she had to “get to Disney World … it was like a salmon swimming upstream.” In retrospect, she realizes it was the last place her whole family — sister Honey, their parents, Barry, and their children — “had been together alive.” She said she, husband Allen and their children, jammed into a two-bedroom condominium at the Florida resort and left after a few days. Allen said after the shock and terror of the murders, it was a “happy place” for his wife.
Mary said despite her real-estate holdings she and her family are struggling financially. “You can tell when (the money) stopped,” Mary said as I left her home, pointing to what to me was a well-decorated dining room with a long table. “No curtains.”
Glasenberg, the president of family holding company Sherfam, said in an email that he is doing everything he can to preserve the legacy of his former employer. “I have continued to carry out my duties since his tragic death, out of loyalty to Dr. Sherman, his legacy and his family.” He told the Star this week he and fellow trustee Brad Krawczyk are supported by the “majority of the shareholders.” (The shareholders of the Sherman empire are Jonathon, Alexandra, Lauren and Kaelen, according to insiders.)
Alexandra, who runs the Sherman charities, said it has been difficult to step into her father and mother’s shoes. “For me, my dad was the one in charge and I loved him and respected him and he did wonderful things for the world and for Apotex.”
For Jonathon, who told his father in an email shortly before the murders that he was the “heir apparent,” the struggle for control and the protracted police investigation are issues he said he is happy to deal with. He said he has no secrets. “I am an open kimono sort of guy.” He said he knows people in and outside the family badmouth him, but he insists he does not care. He said allowing himself to be “kicked around” gives him cover to learn “intel” from people that will help him find out who killed his parents.
One thing Jonathon says he does not want to do in business is operate the way his father did. “The sky is falling and the next day we just made a billion dollars” and the next day, “the sky is falling,” was how he described his late father’s way of doing business.
And he is having trouble sleeping.
“I have always been a good sleeper but now I wake up in the night just thinking,” he says.