TIAA-CREF Reveals Reorganization | Chief Investment Officer

TIAA-CREF plans to combine its real assets units into a single business line, the asset management giant announced Tuesday.

The new standalone division will wrap in many of TIAA-CREF’s largest units, including global real estate, agriculture, timber, infrastructure, and energy. In addition, the real assets group is to take over subsidiaries TH Real Estate, Westchester Group Investment Management, GreenWood Resources, and Churchill Asset Management.

All told, TIAA-CREF expected the real assets business to comprise roughly 900 staff members in 16 countries. The New York-based firm managed $100 billion in real assets as of December 31, 2015.

Private Markets head Joes Minaya is to take over the new division as president, the company said, and supported by current private markets CIO Heather Davis.

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TIAA-CREF scooped a COO for the unit from Nuveen Investments: John MacCarthy spent a decade there as chief legal officer.

Minaya said the reorganization would allow the business to be “more nimble” and “accelerate” its speed to market.

BlackRock undertook a similar restructuring of its real assets business lines last month, as part of a nearly firm-wide organizational shake-up.

Investors representing more than $8 trillion have filed shareholder resolutions calling on three of the world’s largest mining companies to be more transparent over the risks and opportunities of climate change.

“These historic resolutions show how much investors value transparency on the climate risks and opportunities facing companies.”Investors including the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, APG, and PGGM collaborated to file the resolutions. Asset managers including BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Schroders were also co-filers.

The resolutions, which called for improved transparency from mining giants Anglo American, Glencore, and Rio Tinto, were part of ‘Aiming for A,’ an initiative focused on lowering carbon emissions through shareholder activism.

Last year, the ‘Aiming for A’ coalition filed strategic resilience resolutions focusing on climate change with BP and Shell.

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“We have been engaging with companies for some time on these issues and having a constructive dialogue,” said Jessica Ground, global head of stewardship at Schroders. “By co-filing and working with ‘Aiming for A’ we are supporting a more transparent and public discussion of these risks.”

The resolution for all three companies asked for routine annual reporting to include more information regarding emissions management, portfolio resilience, low-carbon energy research and development and investment strategies, strategic key performance indicators, executive incentives, and public policy positions relating to climate change.

UK public pensions belonging to the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF), which has been part of the ‘Aiming for A’ coalition since its inception in 2012, made up half of the largest co-filers by shares held at Anglo American, with 18 funds co-filing across the three companies.

“Since co-filing the first strategic resilience resolutions in 2015, there has been a step-change in investor confidence,” said Kieran Quinn, LAPFF Chair. “We are now seeing the larger pension funds and fund managers stepping forward to co-file.”

Alice Garton, a lawyer at environmental law firm Client Earth who supported the initiative, said the resolutions were an example of investors’ desire for more complete information following the Paris Agreement.

“These historic resolutions show how much investors value transparency on the climate risks and opportunities facing companies,” Garton said.