The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA, formerly TIAA-CREF), is a

Fortune 100 The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...

financial services Financial services are the economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, accountancy companies, ...

organization that is the leading provider of financial services in the academic, research, medical, cultural and governmental fields. TIAA serves over 5 million active and retired employees participating at more than 15,000 institutions and has $1 trillion in combined assets under management with holdings in more than 50 countries ().

Profile

Long organized as a tax-exempt non-profit organization, a 1997 tax bill removed TIAA's tax exemption. It is now organized as a non-profit organization, the TIAA

Board of Governors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...

, with taxable subsidiaries; all profits are returned to policyholders. TIAA bought its

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

headquarters building, 730 Third Avenue, in 1955. It has major offices in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

;

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most popu ...

; and

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

; as well as 70 local offices throughout the U.S. In 2018, TIAA ranked 84th on Fortune's list of the 500 largest corporations in America. , TIAA is the largest global investor in agriculture, the 2nd largest grower of wine grapes in the United States (by acreage), and the 3rd largest commercial real estate manager in the world.

History

In 1918,

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...

and his

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) is a U.S.-based education policy and research center. It was founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of the United States Congress. Among its most nota ...

, under the leadership of Henry S. Pritchett, created the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA), a fully funded system of pensions for professors. Funding was provided by a combination of grants from the foundation and

Carnegie Corporation of New York The Carnegie Corporation of New York is a philanthropic fund established by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to support education programs across the United States, and later the world. Carnegie Corporation has endowed or otherwise helped to establis ...

, as well as ongoing contributions from participating institutions and individuals. The policyholders voted in 1921 to implement policyholder representation on the TIAA board so that educators would have a role in running the organization.

CREF

TIAA's conservative investing helped it survive the

1929 stock market crash The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

and the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...

became a participant in 1933, which TIAA-CREF advertised in a notable 2001 campaign. After World War II, in reaction to rising inflation and lengthening life expectancies, and a dramatic expansion of the education sector with the G.I. Bill, TIAA recognized the need for its participants to invest in equities in order to diversify its retirement funds. TIAA created the College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), a variable annuity, for that purpose, in 1952.

21st century

On June 15, 2007, TIAA became one of the first U.S. companies to voluntarily adopt, and the first to implement, a policyholder advisory vote on executive compensation policy. On February 22, 2016, TIAA-CREF rebranded as simply TIAA as part of a new marketing and imaging campaign. CMO Connie Weaver explained that the old name was perceived by customers as being complicated, and that the new branding scheme was meant to portray a simpler and friendlier image of the organization. , TIAA was providing parental-leave irrespective of the parent's gender.

Investments and diversification

* 2012: bought Festival Place, a shopping center in

Basingstoke Basingstoke ( ) is the largest town in the county of Hampshire. It is situated in south-central England and lies across a valley at the source of the River Loddon, at the far western edge of The North Downs. It is located north-east of Southa ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

for £280 million. * 2013: purchased a 50% stake in the

Grand Canal Shoppes The Grand Canal Shoppes is an upscale shopping mall inside The Venetian Hotel & Casino and The Palazzo on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The mall was opened along with the Venetian in 1999. The mall has indoor canals, where gondolas ...

, including the Shoppes at the Palazzo, in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, for net proceeds of US$410 million as part of a new joint venture with

General Growth Properties GGP Inc. (an initialism of General Growth Properties) was an American commercial real estate company and the second-largest shopping mall operator in the United States. It was founded by brothers Martin, Matthew and Maurice Bucksbaum in Ceda ...

. GGP will continue to oversee the asset management of the project. * 2014: announced that it would acquire

Nuveen Investments Nuveen is an American asset manager and wholly owned subsidiary of financial planning firm TIAA, itself known for its legacy focus on managing money for not-for-profit institutions such as universities and their employees. As a consequence of int ...

in a deal valued at $6.25 billion. * 2016: announced deal to buy

EverBank EverBank, now TIAA Bank, is an American diversified financial services company providing banking, mortgages, and investing services. It is based in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. It operates through standard banking offices and through its Direct B ...

Financial Corp. for $2.5 billion in cash; completed June 12, 2017. The combined bank's legal entity name is TIAA, FSB. Nearly a year after the acquisition of Everbank, TIAA began rebranding all of its banking activities under the

TIAA Bank TIAA Bank is an American diversified financial services organization under the auspices of New York-based TIAA. Based in Jacksonville, Florida, TIAA Bank provides banking, mortgages, and investing services throughout the United States. The instit ...

name on June 4, 2018.

Controversy

On October 17, 2017, ''The New York Times'' published a story alleging that TIAA investment advisors had conflicts of interest when it made financial recommendations to clients. That was based on a whistleblower complaint and class action lawsuit, both of which were instigated by former employees.

References

External links

tiaa.org
company's official website {{Authority control 1918 establishments in New York (state) Andrew Carnegie Companies based in Manhattan Financial services companies based in New York City Financial services companies established in 1918 Insurance companies based in New York City Investment management companies of the United States Non-profit organizations based in New York City Retirement plans in the United States