Moody's Downgrade of TIAA and Nuveen

Read an article on our proposed acquisition of Schroders.
https://alternativecreditinvestor.com/2026/02/13/schroders-deal-costs-to-weigh-on-nuveen-profitability-says-moodys/

From the article

Moody’s has downgraded its outlook for both TIAA and Nuveen from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’, citing the anticipated credit impact of the acquisition.

The ratings agency said the TIAA downgrade reflects anticipated weakening of its financial profile, resulting from the high cost to finance the acquisition. This will increase leverage, reduce capital adequacy, and heightens execution and integration risk associated with the transaction, it said.

Moody’s also noted that “despite the complementary nature of the European asset management target and its potential to bolster Nuveen’s market position and earnings diversification, the acquisition lies outside TIAA’s core higher education pension business”, which is another factor in its decision to revise down the outlook.

With all the layoffs and firings, one has to ask whether our EC is competent enough and whether we have the resources to pull this off. It seems risky. This is about to be a big expensive mess.

#Competency #Firing #Layoff #Acquisition

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15 replies (most recent on top)

@vt I guess you should take this aggression towards Moody's as they gave this independent assessment.

Also, it isn't true that TIAA wasn't profitable in the years post 2011. We were actually profitable all the way up until T joined and it's been downhill ever since. Our annual statements that we file back this up.

As far as ideas, there are a ton of ideas on this board to grow the company once you filter through the chatbots and non-sense to try to limit the creditability of the site. It starts with moving on from the current leadership team that is running this company into the ground.

Gosh the people posting here are mo--ns. You have no suggestions for how TIAA can improve. You just throw sand at whatever ideas they try. Nuveen is the only thing that works at this company. Schroders is a real brand. Only the mo--ns on this board would see this, think it's a red flag. And you have the ba--s to criticize the board or EC (let's be honest, you newbies don't even understand the difference between the two) and act like you, with your 3 years of working some obsolete IT job at TIAA, know better than those folks.

I'm shocked no one yet has said they should've paid the $13B they're borrowing to the employees as an extra bonus to make up for the missed salary increases instead of buying Schroders.

@ce Do you ever listen to Dowrich talk? He lays it out quite clearly that since 2011 TIAA has not been a profitable company. They are regarding legacy money trapped in Traditional but since open architecture, we are not. And needing to scale to compete with Fidelity Empower we need additional revenue sources that are not record keeping (which is in a race to the bottom for fees).

I think they should lose the TIAA and Nuveen brand, keep the Schroeder’s name and license the rights to the Peanuts character who plays classical music on the toy piano.

So….will the 7,000 Schroder employees be transferred to Frisco, Texas? Hey, this will be a great way for management to get us to pay for their European vacations…..for a while. Eventually, even the gigantic credit card that is the General account gets maxed out and canceled. TIAA should hire Madonna for their next foray into the music biz. She’s perfect for the brand. Aging, pathetic, increasingly irrelevant and desperately seeking to hang on with plastic surgery and spin. Trust me, nobody in the financial world will be fooled by this move. It’s a pathetic attempt to hold back the sunset.

@OP TIME TO FIRE THE BOARD, CEO, EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

@ct Nuveen ALWAYS pays way more for its acquisitions than necessary. Look at the Arcmont transition. Then again, it's always easy when its someone else's money i.e. the GA backstops and funds everything.

It appears based on the outlook change to Nuveen/TIAA they are not in agreement with your sentiments.

Why is this a bad thing? TIAA is taking out loans to pursue growth with their biggest money maker being Nuveen… Nuveen can earn more profit and distribute the money up to TIAA so they can continue to pay their participants more. Sure, in the short run there’s additional interest expense on the loan they’d be taking out, but the expectation is that the ROI will exceed the interest rate of the loan?

Biggest question - What is the impact to future rates on TIAA Traditional when board meets on 02/28?

TIAA Traditional is a Guaranteed investment not subject to any type of insurance? Its rates are based on claims paying abilities of TIAA which seem to be diminishing. 40 to 45 cents of every retirement dollar at TIAA is in this fund. How should investors in that fund interpret this headline?

@ca probably when they have to pull out of the NY office… or maybe after they have to close the Charlotte office. Hopefully before they have to close and sell the Frisco office.

But T and the EC are incompetent, greedy, and pathetic.

T/EC doesn’t mind the ratings downgrade. They are having to take on more risk to meet obligations so this has already been signaled to the board and is nothing more than headline shock factor.

The question that needs to be asked is why is TIAA having to take on more risk to meet its obligations…

At what point does the Board stop ignoring these things and send T packing?

“position of strength” haha

The ratings downgrade isn't a good look.

Thread regarding TIAA (TIAA-CREF) layoffs

Moody's Downgrade of TIAA and Nuveen

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