Martin J. Wygod, a Wall Side road whiz who graduated from strolling horses upcoming races to proudly owning and breeding championship thoroughbreds when he made thousands and thousands from making an investment in on-line corporations that offered prescribed drugs by means of mail and pruned scientific bureaucracy, died on April 12 in San Diego. He was once 84.
His daughter, Emily Bushnell, stated he died in a clinic from headaches of lung illness.
Raised close two racetracks in suburban Brandnew York and mentored by means of a tool pioneer, an investor and a gambler, Mr. Wygod was once stated to were the youngest managing spouse of a Brandnew York Keep Change brokerage within the Sixties. He was a millionaire ahead of he was once 30, and in 1993 he sold Medco Containment Services to Merck for $6 billion upcoming development it into the family’s biggest mail-order prescription drug corporate and receive advantages supervisor in not up to a decade. The sale netted Mr. Wygod $250 million.
“The name of the game in the future is going to be information,” Jan Greenback, chairman of Princeton Team World, a pharmaceutical business consulting company, commented at the sale to The New York Times in 1994. “Marty Wygod made $6 billion for himself because he developed a data base.”
Mr. Wygod upcoming was the chairman of WebMD, a pace-setter in on-line fitness knowledge products and services, which he offered in 2017 for a reported $2.8 billion.
He married Pamela Suthern in 1980, and in 1995 they moved from Brandnew Jersey to River Edge Farm, a 110-acre unfold in Buellton, Calif., the place they raised fillies and colts to change into govern racehorses.
Ranked as California’s eminent thoroughbred breeders in 2006, 2007 and 2008, the couple, each with and with out companions, bred 124 stakes winners, in step with BloodHorse copy. They moved their breeding trade to Kentucky in 2010.
Martin Joshua Wygod was once born on Feb. 1, 1940, in New york to Max Wygod, an accountant and haberdasher who had immigrated from Poland, and Rose (Greenwald) Wygod.
His affection for horses started when he was once a scholar at Lawrence Prime Faculty in suburban Nassau County, the place he befriended Bobby Frankel, who would change into a Corridor of Repute lecturer. As a youngster, he frolicked with classmates at Aqueduct and Belmont Ground, the place he walked horses to chill them unwell upcoming workout routines and races.
Later graduating in 1961 from Brandnew York College, the place his daughter stated he studied Hinduism and Buddhism, Mr. Wygod started his Wall Side road occupation with a $20,000 starter present from his mom (the identical of a modest greater than $200,000 nowadays).
He instructed The Times in 2000 that his mentors had been Fletcher Jones, who pioneered the commercialization of pc tool and initiated Mr. Wygod into the era trade; Fred Carr, an funding supervisor; and Manny Kalish, a gambler who handicapped races for Brandnew York’s tabloid newspapers and tutored Mr. Wygod on choosing winners.
Mr. Wygod assisted Mr. Jones, a founding father of Pc Sciences Company, in taking the corporate nation. That providing helped develop Mr. Wygod’s $20,000 in seed cash into about $50 million by means of the Eighties.
In 1965, Mr. Jones gave Mr. Wygod two horses for his twenty fifth birthday.
“They both won the first time out,” Mr. Wygod stated in 2000. “I was hooked.”
His strong would win greater than a lot main races through the years.
When he was once 23, Mr. Wygod began his personal brokerage company; he offered it 3 years upcoming for $10 million. The later yr, he and two alternative buyers, Bernie Marden and Albert Weiss, bought a controlling hobby in Glasrock Scientific Services and products, which produced gadgets for the fitness serve business. By way of 1982, by means of promoting maximum of his hobby in Glasrock and any other corporate, he had parlayed his fresh $2 million funding into $125 million.
Mr. Carr were an early backer of Medco. Michael Milken, any other previous investor in Mr. Wygod’s ventures, recalled to The Instances in 2000 that an impetus for Medco was once a grievance from Lee Iacocca, upcoming the chairman of Chrysler, that prescribed drugs for auto staff had been costing the corporate a petite fortune. Medco negotiated reductions and incentives for staff who purchased lower-priced generic medication.
“It was one of the great creations of a business, really from scratch,” Mr. Milken stated. He added, “Anything that Marty does, I would invest in, except the horses.”
In fact, the horses had been negative exception. The racing operation run by means of the Wygods recorded occupation handbag profits of greater than $21 million, together with $2.8 million of their easiest yr, 2009.
Along with his spouse and his daughter, Mr. Wygod is survived by means of their son, Max; a stepson, Adam Yellin; his sister, Marian; and 3 grandchildren.
His daughter is an equestrian to whom, together with the bloodstock marketing consultant Ric Waldman, Mr. Wygod gave his 3-year-old colt Resilience, who may just ranking another notch in Mr. Wygod’s legacy. By way of successful the Plank Memorial in Brandnew York on April 6, Resilience earned a berth within the a hundred and fiftieth Kentucky Derby on Might 4.
