Tim's Question and Answer Statement - 2022 CREF Meeting (1 minute, 55 seconds)
Timothy Buchman, Participant at Amherst College, Lincoln Center, and City Center Theater. The time limit forces me to list all my questions together:
First, I want to ask about the plan to merge CREF into TIAA, and terminate CREF as an NFP corporation.
CREF currently has no contingency reserves. But the conversion bills mention “reserves.”, which can be taxed. Will CREF unit-holders pay the various costs of the legislated conversion? What does the conversion mean for the current Prospectus promise of “… the provision of services for CREF “at cost”?”
I understand that there are “shared” employees at subsidiaries like TCIM. But it disturbs me that there are numerous regulatory filings in which the CREF agent’s signature uses their Nuveen.com email address. This raises the issue of their zeitgeist identification with, and loyalty to, a company whose compensation practices are excluded from TIAA’s voluntary annual Compensation Report. It puts a face on my previous complaint about the dangers of demands to “Eat What We Kill.”
Am I paranoid? Here’s an early quote from the Wolves of Nuveen: “Some people hear ‘Nuveen’ and they’ll think ‘municipal bonds,’ and they hear ‘TIAA’ and they think ‘retirement provider … We’re trying to change the perception people have about the organization, the breadth of the investment platform and really what we stand for.” [1] Who knew that retirement investing was a stagnant backwater at our $283 Billion company?
[1] https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2018/10/26/4-years-after-its-acquisition-how-is-nuveen-doing/