TIAA Reveals Global Asset Management Brand

The rebranded TIAA Global Asset Management organization offers investments in more than 40 countries and collectively manages $854 billion in assets.

TIAA’s global investing infrastructure will now use the client-facing brand name, TIAA Global Asset Management, to better reflect the firm’s global capabilities.

The name change, which follows last month’s announcement of TIAA’s wider rebranding, is meant to more clearly signal the firm’s global investment capabilities, which “span traditional public market strategies including equities and fixed income, as well as alternative and private investments such as commercial real estate, agriculture, timber, infrastructure and energy.”

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TIAA Global Asset Management’s established investment teams, strategies, products and investment solutions will not change as a result of the new brand, the firm explains.  

“This announcement underscores our objective of bringing more investment opportunities to more clients in more places than ever before,” adds Rob Leary, CEO of TIAA Global Asset Management. “The new brand recognizes that we serve a wide range of investors around the world, from retirement plan sponsors and participants to high-net-worth individuals, financial advisers and some of the world’s largest institutional investors.”

The latest announcement comes as part of the firm’s ongoing strategy to expand its capabilities and solutions to better serve the diverse needs of its client base. Over the past several years, TIAA Global Asset Management has acquired Nuveen Investments to grow its presence in the retail, high-net-worth and financial intermediary space; expanded its suite of responsible investing and target-date funds; and launched new capabilities in private debt, real estate and other real asset strategies. 

DB Plan Assets Down Slightly in 2015, DC Plan Assets Up

Retirement accounts held the bulk of target-date mutual fund assets as of the end of 2015.

Total U.S. retirement assets were $24 trillion as of December 31, 2015, up 3% from the end of September and unchanged for the year, according to data from the Investment Company Institute (ICI).

Although retirement assets were also $24 trillion as of December 31, 2014, the makeup of those assets changed: Annuity reserves and individual retirement account (IRA) assets held steady at $1.9 trillion and $7.3 trillion, respectively, but government defined benefit (DB) plan assets fell from $5.2 trillion to $5.1 trillion, private sector DB plan assets fell from $3 trillion to $2.9 trillion, and defined contribution (DC) plan assets increased from $6.6 trillion to $6.7 trillion.

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Retirement assets accounted for 34% of all household financial assets in the United States at the end of the fourth quarter of 2015, ICI notes.

Assets in IRAs totaled $7.3 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2015, an increase of 2.7% from the end of the third quarter. DC plan assets rose 3.4% in the fourth quarter to $6.7 trillion. Government DB plans—including federal, state, and local government plans—held $5.1 trillion in assets as of the end of December, a 3.4% increase from the end of September. Private-sector DB plans held $2.9 trillion in assets at the end of the fourth quarter of 2015, and annuity reserves outside of retirement accounts accounted for another $1.9 trillion.

Americans held $6.7 trillion in all employer-based DC retirement plans on December 31, 2015, of which $4.7 trillion was held in 401(k) plans. In addition to 401(k) plans, at the end of the fourth quarter, $514 billion was held in other private-sector DC plans, $879 billion in 403(b) plans, $263 billion in 457 plans, and $430 billion in the Federal Employees Retirement System’s Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Mutual funds managed $3.6 trillion, or 54%, of assets held in DC plans at the end of December.

Forty-eight percent of IRA assets, or $3.5 trillion, was invested in mutual funds.

As of December 31, 2015, target-date mutual fund assets totaled $763 billion, an increase of 5.2% in the fourth quarter. Retirement accounts held the bulk of target-date mutual fund assets: 88% of target-date mutual fund assets were held through DC plans (67% of the total) and IRAs (21%).

The quarterly retirement data tables are available at “The U.S. Retirement Market, Fourth Quarter 2015.”

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