Thread regarding TIAA (TIAA-CREF) layoffs

@ @erop+1szgrXXS record keeping is not a money maker - it’s a loss leader that’s been a necessary burden in order to make money on the assets in the TIAA product. Industry wide, record keeping is a loser meant to bring in other asset flows. The one exception to that is Empower. If Empower can record keep a version of the product going forward, there’s no need for TIAA to do it other than the legacy products and assets. That gets outsourced and presto, TIAA is out of the record keeping business and has off loaded the biggest overhead drag on the firm. Nuveen makes money, the rest of TIAA just spends it.

Recordkeeping is our money maker but we SU-K at it. We are years behind everyone else. I completely agree this company won’t exist in a few years because no one wants Nuveen either.

@dfpf+1szgrXXS … I think you’re pretty spot on with that prediction … rather spoiler…

Kinda wish they would layoff more of us so we can go work for Empower or somewhere and do the same jobs then transfer our retirement money to a more reputable company… or just stuff it in my 4APY bank account lol.

Bold (or maybe not so bold) prediction: TIAA won't exist by 2030...maybe before that. All of the TIAA products will be offered on other platforms (see recent inclusion of a TIAA annuity version on Empower), record keeping and associated client service will be fully outsourced to an entirely different company. All of the ancillary lines of business that haven't been sold off yet, will be, or just shut down. Nuveen will exist as an asset manager and be the defecto go forward version of TIAA, but just like CREF disappeared from the name, so too will TIAA. Nuveen will manage the assets, and stamp the statements coming from the outsourced record keeper, any products left will be on third party platforms and wealth management business will be sold off just like many others have done.

Well said @xsz+1

The thing is that when T Rowe and VG did this, they probably gave up a small part of their business and they probably did not have much idea about record keeping anyway.

But for TIAA, record keeping is everything, they have been doing this for over 100 years. And for them to give that away is not just stupid but it will also be a disaster. This will be the end of TIAA as we know it.

They will give their people away for a year to another company, really? Anyone working in record keeping will tell you that in a year you barely scratch the surface of RK. I have been working over 13 years and I am still learning stuff every day.

Plus, TIAA has always been technologically behind. Just look at how many small applications the company has and how they have to talk to each other and depend on each other. No single person and I mean literally NO ONE knows the whole thing end of end. Those people are long gone and they never upgraded anything.

It takes a lot of effort from lot of people to keep running RK's day to day operations. Good luck moving that over to a company who will always be looking to cut people cost by moving everything offshore.

But EC does not care about long term implications. They will probably sell it now, make their millions and kick the can down the road so someone else can deal with it. They will be long gone before the disaster unwinds.

They will probably make some management move to new company so they can show that everyone is affected and hire them back in couple of years. The people who suffer will be the people who actually keep the business rolling.

Hopefully the whole thing takes a few years so I can call quits and start my lifetime income.

TIAA the insurance company that doesn’t have insurance. The retirement plan record keeper that doesn’t actually record keep anything. That leaves nuveen which is now just a middle of the road high cost mutual fund company that nobody has heard of and no plan sponsors want as investment options in their plans. Just wait until the market tanks.