Mike Sales and Chad Phillips

The retirement funds of teachers across the country are in good hands.

With $147 billion of assets under management, Nuveen Real Estate, a subsidiary of financial services giant TIAA, is one of the world’s five largest investment management firms. The company’s portfolio is vast. Established in 2013 as Nuveen’s real estate arm, it has holdings across most standard and alternative asset types, as well as in debt and securities, throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. 

Within the past year, that includes major funding commitments from both the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System. The former last year allocated a total of $500 million for Nuveen Real Estate’s U.S. Affordable Housing Fund, launched in 2023, while the latter allocated $150 million toward Nuveen’s self-storage investment strategy. The firm is, unsurprisingly, leaders in both spaces, with more than 32,000 affordable units valued at roughly $6 billion and 170 self-storage assets valued at $2.7 billion.

Chad Phillips, Nuveen Real Estate’s global head as of late March, is particularly enthusiastic about anchor-based retail at the moment, as robust demand and lack of new developments make the sector’s fundamentals more robust than just about any other asset class. The firm announced in May that it had raised $320 million in new capital for its U.S. Cities Retail Fund, which targets grocery-anchored and necessity retail. 

Although general economic uncertainty and President Donald Trump’s tariff policies continue to threaten the investment outlook, Phillips said he expects another strong year in 2026. 

“We do expect volatility to continue … [but] our job is to prepare our teams and clients during times of uncertainty, and that’s why our emphasis remains on resilient, essential real estate with large demand drivers that helps provide protection during periods of macro volatility.”