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Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association - College Retirement Equities Fund
Type	Private
Founded	1918
Headquarters	New York, New York
Key people	Herbert M. Allison, Jr., President, CEO, & Chairman
Products	Financial Services
Employees	6,200
Slogan	Financial Services For The Greater Good
Website	www.tiaa-cref.org

TIAA-CREF is one of the largest financial services companies in the United States, with more than $437 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2007. Its approximately 15,000 institutional clients are drawn from the non-profit and educational sectors, and the company itself is operated on a not-for-profit basis. TIAA-CREF is headquartered in New York City and has major offices in Denver, Colorado; Charlotte, North Carolina and Dallas, Texas as well as 55 local offices throughout the U.S. Since 2002 its Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer has been Herbert M. Allison, Jr. TIAA-CREF ranks 80th on Fortune's list of the 500 largest corporations in America.

TIAA-CREF was originally created to provide retirement income for professors, and its core business remains 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.

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).

Andrew Carnegie is credited with foreseeing the need to offer pensions for professors. 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.

Over the past several years the company has taken steps to offer institutional and individual clients a wider range of financial products and services, along with personalized advice and education to help investors make sound financial decisions. To deliver these and other benefits, TIAA-CREF has decided to shift to a more modern and flexible plan-based retirement record-keeping system. Throughout this complex transition, some consumers have experienced delayed transactions and other service shortfalls. TIAA-CREF has posted information on its web site about these issues and actions the company is taking to deliver the service clients expect. See [1]

TIAA is one of only three U.S. insurance company groups to receive the highest ratings from the nation's four leading rating agencies (A++, A.M. Best Company (as of 6/07); AAA, Fitch (as of 5/07); Aaa, Moody's Investors Service (as of 5/07); AAA, Standard & Poor's (as of 7/07))

On August 15, 2007, TIAA-CREF launched its new national advertising campaign, the "powerof.org," which emphasizes the organization's nonprofit heritage and mission to help meet the financial needs of institutions and individuals in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields.

On June 28, 2007, the California State Teachers' Retirement System(CalSTRS) [2]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 nation.

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. Preliminary results, announced on July 17, were that 82% of policyholders who voted approved the quality of the company’s executive compensation plan and disclosure, including its connection to performance, achievement of TIAA’s business objectives and creation of long-term value for policyholders.

How TIAA-CREF functions for its individual investors, known as "Participants", is explained in detail in the book titled "Understanding TIAA-CREF: How to Plan for a Secure and Comfortable Retirement" by Irving S. Schloss and Deborah V. Abildsoe and published by the Oxford University Press in the year 2000.