TIAA-CREF (Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association - College Retirement Equities Fund) is one of the largest financial services companies in the United States, with $398 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2008.
The organization helps meet the financial needs of approximately 3.6 million individuals and 15,000 institutions in the academic, research, medical, cultural and nonprofit fields. Much of TIAA-CREF operates on a nonprofit basis, with surplus returned to participants. TIAA-CREF is headquartered in New York City and has major offices in Denver, Colorado; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Dallas, Texas; as well as 60 local offices throughout the United States. The company ranks 86th on Fortune's list of the 500 largest corporations in America. The company owns the Walkers Stadium where Leicester City play their football matches[citation needed].
Profile
TIAA-CREF was originally created to replace the system of free pensions provided by Carnegie Corporation for professors. When the origin fund proved inadequate, TIAA was created in an Act of the New York State Legislature in 1918 as a stock life insurance company for the purpose of providing retirement income for professors through fixed premium guaranteed deferred annuity contracts. Later in 1952, CREF was created to allow professors to invest in the stock market through the nation's first variable annuity. Its core business continues to be retirement plan administration and annuity products. It is by far the largest manager of so-called employer-sponsored 403(b) tax-sheltered annuity plans, a defined contribution retirement plan for employees of 501(c)(3) educational, religious, and charitable organizations. The company also offers 401(k) and 457 plans, Keogh plans, and Supplemental Retirement Plans. Contributions from these plans are typically invested in the company's traditional or variable annuities or its line of mutual funds.
In recent years the company has greatly expanded its capabilities and advisory services and broadened clients' investment choices.
At the retail level, TIAA-CREF offers Traditional and Rollover Individual Retirement Accounts, Roth IRAs, mutual funds, after-tax annuities and life insurance (through TIAA-CREF Life), 529 college savings plans, Coverdell Education Savings Accounts, financial planning, and trust and investment management (through TIAA-CREF Trust Company, FSB).
On the institutional side, TIAA-CREF Asset Management serves institutional investors and intermediaries, including registered investment advisors, investment-only defined contribution platforms and broker/dealers.
As of 2009, it is one of only five US companies rated AAA by Moody's, indicating that it is expected to repay its debt under any circumstances.[1]
History
Andrew Carnegie is credited with foreseeing the need to offer pensions for professors. A prototype of the TIAA annuity system was developed by Carnegie while he served on the board of trustees of Cornell University between 1890 and 1905, for the benefit of that institution's faculty. In 1918 his Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, under the leadership of Henry S. Pritchett, created the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA). It was incorporated as a life insurance company and tasked with providing life insurance and pensions for college and university employees, and endowed with $1 million from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Conservative investing allowed TIAA to survive the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression. Faced with high inflation, increasing life expectancies, and a dramatic expansion of the education sector with the G.I. Bill, TIAA established the College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), a variable annuity allowing for investment in equities, in 1952.
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 June 28, 2007, the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) announced its selection of TIAA-CREF as the sole investment provider for its supplemental retirement savings programs. CalSTRS is the second-largest public pension plan and the largest teachers' retirement fund in the United States.
On August 12, 2008, TIAA-CREF announced the opening of a new office in London. The office will be staffed by local investment professionals who will extend TIAA-CREF Global Real Estate's activities in the United Kingdom and Europe.
On September 7, 2008, Herb Allison, the former chairman and CEO of TIAA-CREF, was tapped to lead beleaguered home mortgage backer Fannie Mae, as part of a government bailout engineered by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
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