May 18, 2006

TIAA-CREF Named Advice Provider of the Year

TIAA-CREF, the financial services organization and leading provider of retirement security in the academic, medical and cultural fields, today announced that it was named Advice Provider of the Year by Defined Contribution & Savings Plan Alert (formerly Defined Contribution News).

“We’re honored to win this award. It confirms that we’ve built a truly distinctive, personalized, objective advice platform,” said Maliz Beams, Senior Managing Director, Wealth Management and Advice. "Managing financial security before, during and after retirement has been our only mission for nearly 90 years.  In alignment with that mission, we’ve expanded our capabilities to even better serve the long-term financial planning and retirement needs of our 3.2 million participants.”

TIAA-CREF has partnered with a leading third party financial expert to offer expanded, personal and objective advice to the company’s participants and member institutions.  In 2005, TIAA-CREF launched its pension advice platform focusing on asset allocation and fund selection. The program was initially accepted by over 140 institutions and offered to over 500,000 participants. In 2006-2007, it will be offered at nearly all of the company’s participating 15,000 institutions.

This award singled out TIAA-CREF's advice offering as the best offering of its kind in the industry, citing that "the firm launched an advice program in April that will combine one-on-one meetings with managed accounts."  James Nichols is vice president of Advice Strategy for the company.

Defined Contribution & Savings Plan Alert is a weekly newsletter that is a leading provider of market intelligence on tax advantaged retirement, health care and college savings accounts.

About TIAA-CREF
TIAA-CREF is a national financial services organization with more than $380 billion in combined assets under management (3/31/06) and the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields.  Further information can be found at www.tiaa-cref.org.