Social Activists Resume TIAA-CREF Campaign

A group of TIAA-CREF shareholders has resumed a protest campaign after a yearlong hiatus, saying the manager of the largest U.S. retirement fund reneged on promises to support a wider array of “socially conscious” investments.

Social Choice for Social Change wanted New York-based TIAA-CREF to devote as much as 5% of the $7 billion Social Choice portfolio to certain investments including community-development loan funds, said Neil Wollman, a psychology professor at Manchester College in North Manchester, Ind. Wollman acts as spokesman for a group of about 400 investors, mostly academics.

TIAA-CREF, which manages $345 billion in retirement assets for 3.2 million shareholders, is “totally stonewalling and backtracking” on the group’s investment proposals, Wollman said in an interview this week. Social Choice for Social Change will resume demonstrations and leafleting at TIAA-CREF branch offices as well as letter-writing campaigns, he said.

TIAA-CREF, a company that mainly serves employees of universities, hospitals and cultural institutions, said it met the group’s call to adopt more activist proxy voting. The company said it planned to survey shareholders to see whether there was support for a fund with features the group is seeking.