YGGDRASIL

Race Bias #16 - "Minority Business Bootstrapped"

In much of the racial dialogue in the U.S., integrationists dispute the simple fact of anti-white bias in the system. Of course, the media generally propagate our national myths; myths intended to hide the ball from the majority. But there is one major daily newspaper that consistently reports facts that are inconsistent with our national myths.

Now here is one example of the many hundreds of discriminatory private investment programs that favor non-whites establishing businesses.

If you expect to compete against this sort of favoritism, you had better plan your business very carefully. Again, this behavior is not compelled by law.

By the way, TIAA-CREF is the provider of retirement annuities for most of the nation's university professors. It is one of the largest asset managers in the U.S.

Are you surprised?

Yggdrasil-

BUSINESS & RACE

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By Leon E. Wynter

09/21/93 WALL STREET JOURNAL (J), PAGE B1

Arranged Marriage Meets Commitment

MANY socially conscious companies pledge to increase business with minority suppliers. But if no minority firm is large enough for the job, a big company sometimes creates one.

That is what the giant New York annuity company Teachers Insurance & Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund did recently. It shepherded a joint venture between PM Realty Group, Houston, a large white-owned manager of commercial properties, and RMC Group, New York, owned by veteran black real estate consultant Richmond McCoy. The McCoy/PM Realty Group, launched in June, is 52% owned by RMC and is the nation's largest minority-owned full-service property manager. To seal the deal, TIAA-CREF and PM's parent, Jupiter Industries, Chicago, each committed 1.25 million square feet of property for McCoy/PM to manage.

Patrick Jolivet, TIAA-CREF associate manager for real estate, says he wanted to avoid creating a minority "front" firm -- one only nominally controlled by minorities. He says the joint venture creates "a truly minority-owned firm that can compete with all other management-leasing companies on their own terms."

Mr. McCoy says RMC Group, begun in 1991, stumbled at first by focusing on corporate and government "set-aside" work and serving other minority firms. "You go down that route, you're destined for failure," he says, because that strategy doesn't generate enough work.

McCoy/PM has 3,500 employees -- mostly contributed by PM -- in 22 states. Minorities are almost invisible as managers in the management-leasing industry; Mr. McCoy plans to hire minorities "whenever possible" to change that. * * *


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