TIAA-CREF Celebrates its 90th Anniversary

Business Wire, May 15, 2008

Organization formed in 1918 to realize Andrew Carnegie's vision of lifetime financial security for participants

Milestone in a History of Service, Performance and Innovation

NEW YORK -- TIAA-CREF, a national financial services organization and the leading retirement system for people in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields, will complete its 90th year of service to clients on May 17.

On that day in 1918, the Trustees of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) ratified the organization's mission to help meet the financial needs of the institutions and individuals it serves on the best terms practicable. Together with the College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF), TIAA is now America's largest private retirement system. The organization serves 3.4 million individuals and more than 15,000 institutions, with $420 billion in combined assets under management (3/31/2008).

"As TIAA-CREF completes its 90th year we are better positioned than ever to help meet clients' financial needs," said Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President and CEO. "This anniversary marks 90 years of consistent, long-term performance and service. Our organization's continued strong investment performance, expanded choice, objective advice, and enhanced accessibility reflect the steps we are taking today to ensure that TIAA-CREF continues to meet clients' needs now and in the future."

"Congratulations and happy 90th anniversary to TIAA-CREF," said Ronald B. McKinley, Vice President of Human Resources at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Chairman of TIAA-CREF's institutional client Advisory Council. "On behalf of the client Advisory Council, I want to thank TIAA-CREF for its track record of performance, innovation, service and responsiveness to clients. Our institutions are fortunate to have a retirement system we can call our own. On behalf of my colleagues, I appreciate TIAA-CREF's dedication to our needs, and look forward to the organization's continuing to build on its record of accomplishment."

A Historic and Unchanging Mission

TIAA was started in 1918 with a $1 million grant from Andrew Carnegie through Carnegie Corporation of New York, to provide portable, fully vested retirement annuities and individual life insurance for educators. In cooperation with educators and with leadership from another Carnegie philanthropy -- The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching -- TIAA realized Andrew Carnegie's pioneering vision that colleges needed to offer adequate pensions in order to attract and retain talented teachers.

Within one year, 30 public and private academic institutions and 464 participants had signed on with TIAA. Henry S. Pritchett, TIAA's first president, grew the organization to manage nearly $24 million for 192 institutions and almost 12,000 participants by the time he retired in 1930.

In its first two decades, TIAA's portfolio invested in government, railroad and industrial bonds. That strategy followed the prudent thinking at the time and enabled TIAA to continue paying pensions to participants throughout the Great Depression.

During the 1940s, inflation and long-term trends in improved U.S. life expectancy created new challenges for investing and retirement planning. TIAA's pensions were meant to last a lifetime; however, with lives lasting longer and the dollar shrinking, new strategies were needed. The organization conducted its own pioneering economic study which concluded that an investment strategy including both fixed-income instruments and equities could help protect against fluctuations in stock prices and changes in the value of the dollar. To implement this strategy, TIAA created CREF, a companion organization, which introduced the world's first variable annuity in 1952.

As the organization grew, TIAA-CREF continued to provide innovative solutions for building retirement assets. In the 1970s, it was one of the first to use an extensive portfolio of international stocks as part of its investment strategy. In 1988, the organization began expanding its variable annuity offerings, including the TIAA Real Estate Account launched in 1995, a separate account that invests in directly-owned real estate properties.

Sound investment products and a long-term investment strategy have allowed the organization to weather periods of high market volatility and to establish its superlative staying power. Today, TIAA is one of just three U.S. insurance companies to receive the highest rating from all major rating agencies, indicating that the organization has the claims-paying ability investors count on to get them through retirement.(i) Over 500,000 participants received a combined $10 billion from TIAA-CREF during 2007.

TIAA-CREF also has expanded its view of companies in its investment portfolios. In 1970, the organization began incorporating social issues into proxy voting. Today the organization's CREF Social Choice Account, a balanced variable annuity account with over 430,000 investors and $8.7 billion in assets (as of 3/31/08), invests in U.S. and non-U.S. companies and is the largest, most comprehensive socially screened investment vehicle available to individual investors in the United States.