During the fall of 2007, Horowitz, a registered represent ative at Morgan Stanley, pitched this investment strategy to his clients, chose the variable annuities to be purchased, and submitted the annuity purchases to Morgan Stanley or other broker-dealer firms. Hoping to increase the size of his variable annuity business, Horowitz began looking for institutional capital to fund more purchases of variable annuities with terminally ill annuitants.
https://www.sec.gov/alj/aljdec/2015/id733bpm.pdf