Serious question:
The markets are at its historic high, literally since the founding of this country:
S&P 500 = 5,433
NASDAQ = 17,667 (new high today)
With > trillion dollars AUM, we should be overwhelmed with profits
How is TIAA so dysfunctional that it struggles in a rising market ?
As a former TIAA employee (got laid off from Marketing due to Mickey O), it’s sad to see what’s going on. The leadership is trash and there are no signs that things will improve. Wishing you all the best given the sinking ship that is clearing happening.
TIAA has no compelling products (while TIAA Traditional has its merits, the bottom line is that the market doesn't value it), poor service and a cost base that makes it non-competitive on price. It's the financial services version of IBM...was the 10,000lb gorilla of the market, but grew complacent and got passed by more innovative, cheaper competition. The only reason TIAA still exists is because it has hundreds of millions locked up in legacy money on TIAA Traditional (the IBM comparison is their giant installed based of old enterprise servers) that is very difficult to get out. Eventually, those funds will dwindle down to the point that they no longer provide enough income to keep the firm afloat and at that point, it gets carved up and sold off...probably well before that point.
@2gde+1t0aOcrb Is that why my personal email is constantly spammed by JP Morgan offering to help me with my money? I don't remember it happening before I my layoff. It feels really shady.
TIAA is headed for required or mandated acquisition. Look only as far as where T came from to see the suitor. Then the layoffs really start.
Sinking ship called the TIAAtanic?
@1flb+1t0aOcrb's explanation is perfect but as others have said, expenses > revenues.
Since TIAA's General Account basically funds the company, watch the allocation of how it's invested. The GA has been investing in riskier assets and continues to increase it allocation to riskier investments to meet it's funding obligations.
The board doesn't want to signal to the market/participants that the company is in trouble by reducing the dividend payment to the minimum guarantee to save money so they are trying desperately to cut expenses while getting more yield from the GA. Also, look at the recently release executive comp report. It's all rosey and the signaling to the market that the executives comp is increasing only strengthens the "all is good at TIAA" narrative. It's all bullsh-t...
This place is in serious trouble and the majority of the boot-licking associates are too naive to see it.
You have your ballots in my right now. Don’t vote to re elect anyone if the board members.
Make sure you are electing for employee representation on the board.
For all the limitations on how we can take out our retirement $$$ this is our company too.
Watch they eff with that next BTW.
Don’t be the last rat on a sinking ship.
Our consultant relations team has done Sh-t job getting our funds to be scored highly by advisor firms. Advisors aren’t willing to use our prop funds. Consultants ki-led our prop revenue. And then we priced our Recordkeeping into the ground. And then we never say no to any of the BS Manual sh-t we are asked to do by clients. And our systems su-k. And we create positions left and right. And spend too much money at the top of the house. And finally , we sc--w up half the time and burn more money fixing our stupid errors. Nobody wants our menu. They want us to bend over and say yes to everything and expect us charge literally nothing for Recordkeeping. And cost per participant is off the charts. And competitors have their sh-t together and do it better.
Our fundamental problem is that for the last 20 years we have had no backbone to stand up to anything. Our biggest clients are brats and the consultant firms play the sh-t out of us. We’ve been so misguided by how we should run a business. Leadership has failed us well before T and her disaster.
And as Mr. Wonderful would say , and for that reason, we are done.
Class dismissed.
Every company that doesn’t adapt starts to die. It’s pretty much a law of the economy. TIAA had the advantage of being the biggest fish in the walled-pond of the not-for-profit market for many years, so it got fat because it didn’t need to adapt.
TIAA lost its not-for-profit status back in 1997 and has been trying to catch-up ever since. TIAA also has most of its profits locked in illiquid annuities (TIAA Traditional) which means without a catastrophe, the company will die very slowly.
Imagine TIAA sells BlackBerry phones (annuities) with 30-50 year contracts that people cannot get out of. Even though BlackBerry phones aren’t popular anymore, TIAA is still going to profit for a while because the money is guaranteed to keep coming in. But no matter how many rap songs TIAA funds, the market has already moved on from BlackBerrys.
It’s probable that the rest of the industry knew this and therefore it was difficult to find a CEO after Ferguson with enough experience to fix it. Instead it was simpler to get an inexperienced person with lots to prove.
I agree with your 2 cents and here is a third.
Captain T is steering us FWRD into a maelstrom of a landfill sized dumpster fire inside an erupting volcano.
Someone else on another post said it for me. Wish they would just get on with it and lay me/us off already… they can let the interns steer the ship before the tragic end.
My two cents- record keeping business we are loosing money.
Most of my institutional clients I have prefer Vanguard funds even for Money Market. How does Tiaa make money.
Just my opinion waiting for others to chime in.