Summary Prospectus
MARCH 1, 2014
TIAA-CREF International Opportunities Fund
of the TIAA-CREF Funds
Class Ticker: Retail TIOSX Retirement TIOTX Premier TIOPX Institutional TIOIX
Before you invest, you may want to review the Fund’s prospectus, which contains more information about the Fund and its risks. You can find the Fund’s prospectus and other information about the Fund online at www.tiaa-cref.org/tcfio. You can also get this information at no cost by calling 800 223-1200 or by sending an e-mail request to disclosure@tiaa-cref.org. The Fund’s prospectus and Statement of Additional Information (“SAI”), each dated March 1, 2014, as subsequently supplemented, and the sections of the Fund’s shareholder report dated October 31, 2013 from “Summary Portfolio of Investments” through “Notes to Financial Statements,” are incorporated into this Summary Prospectus by reference and may be obtained free of charge at the website, phone number or e-mail address noted above.
Investment objective
The Fund seeks a favorable long-term total return, mainly through capital appreciation, primarily from equity securities of foreign issuers.
Fees and expenses
This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the Fund:
SHAREHOLDER FEES (deducted directly from gross amount of transaction)
Retail | Retirement
| Premier | Institutional | |||||
Maximum Sales Charge Imposed on Purchases | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | ||||
Maximum Deferred Sales Charge | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | ||||
Maximum
Sales Charge Imposed on Reinvested | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | ||||
Redemption or Exchange Fee (on shares held less than 60 days) | 2.00% | 2.00% | 2.00% | 2.00% | ||||
Account
Maintenance Fee | $15.00 | 0% | 0% | 0% |
TIAA-CREF International Opportunities Fund ■ Summary Prospectus 1
ANNUAL FUND OPERATING EXPENSES (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)
|
| Retail
|
| Retirement Class |
| Premier Class |
| Institutional |
|
Management Fees | 0.60% | 0.60% | 0.60% | 0.60% | |||||
Distribution (Rule 12b-1) Fees | 0.25% | — | 0.15% | — | |||||
Other Expenses | 0.25% | 0.48% | 0.25% | 0.20% | |||||
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses | 1.10% | 1.08% | 1.00% | 0.80% | |||||
Waivers and Expense Reimbursements1 | (0.01)% | (0.13)% | (0.15)% | (0.10)% | |||||
Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses After Fee Waiver and/or Expense Reimbursement | 1.09% |
| 0.95% |
| 0.85% |
| 0.70% |
| |
1 | Under the Fund’s expense reimbursement arrangements, the Fund’s investment adviser, Teachers Advisors, Inc., has contractually agreed to reimburse the Fund for any Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses (excluding interest, taxes, brokerage commissions or other transactional expenses, Acquired Fund Fees and Expenses and extraordinary expenses) that exceed: (i) 1.09% of average daily net assets for Retail Class shares; (ii) 0.95% of average daily net assets for Retirement Class shares; (iii) 0.85% of average daily net assets for Premier Class shares; and (iv) 0.70% of average daily net assets for Institutional Class shares of the Fund. These expense reimbursement arrangements will continue through at least February 28, 2015, unless changed with approval of the Board of Trustees. | ||||||||
Example
This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in shares of the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The example assumes that you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all your shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that the Fund’s operating expenses, before expense reimbursements, remain the same. The example assumes that the Fund’s expense reimbursement agreement will remain in place through February 28, 2015, but that there will be no waiver or expense reimbursement agreement in effect thereafter. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:
| Retail Class |
| Retirement Class |
| Premier Class |
| Institutional Class |
| ||||
1 Year | $ | 111 | $ | 97 | $ | 87 | $ | 72 | ||||
3 Years | $ | 349 | $ | 331 | $ | 303 | $ | 245 | ||||
5 Years | $ | 605 | $ | 583 | $ | 538 | $ | 434 | ||||
10 Years | $ | 1,339 |
| $ | 1,306 |
| $ | 1,211 |
| $ | 981 |
|
Portfolio turnover
The Fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or “turns over” its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs and may result in higher taxes when Fund shares are held in a taxable account. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the Fund’s performance. During the period between April 12, 2013 (inception date) and
2 Summary Prospectus ■ TIAA-CREF International Opportunities Fund
October 31, 2013, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 35% of the average value of its portfolio.
Principal investment strategies
The Fund primarily invests in equity securities of issuers in developed and emerging markets located around the world but outside the United States. The Fund anticipates investing in a number of foreign markets, but at a minimum it will invest in at least three countries outside the United States. The Fund’s investment adviser, Teachers Advisors, Inc. (“Advisors”), selects individual stocks, and lets the Fund’s country and regional asset allocations evolve from this stock selection. The Fund may invest in companies of all sizes.
Advisors typically invests in companies that it believes can demonstrate positive and sustainable structural change. In addition, Advisors looks for companies in the early stages of a structural growth opportunity driven by differentiated products and/or services that maintain strong barriers to entry, continue to outgrow peers and demonstrate accelerating top-line growth with margin expansion. Advisors will typically invest in these types of companies when Advisors believes that their stock prices do not fully reflect the stock’s potential value, based on current earnings, assets and long-term growth prospects.
The Fund is actively managed; however, Advisors regularly reviews the Fund’s sector and country exposure against the Fund’s benchmark index, the Morgan Stanley Capital International ACWI (All Country World Index) ex-USA Index (the “MSCI ACWI ex-USA® Index”), to seek to control risk.
Principal investment risks
You could lose money over short or long periods by investing in this Fund. An investment in the Fund, due to the nature of the Fund’s portfolio holdings, typically is subject to the following principal investment risks:
· Market Risk—The risk that market prices of portfolio investments held by the Fund may fall rapidly or unpredictably due to a variety of factors, including changing economic, political or market conditions. Market risk may affect a single issuer, industry or sector of the economy, or it may affect the market as a whole.
· Issuer Risk (often called Financial Risk)—The risk that an issuer’s earnings prospects and overall financial position will deteriorate, causing a decline in the value of the issuer’s financial instruments over short or extended periods of time.
· Active Management Risk—The risk that Advisors’ strategy, investment selection or trading execution may cause the Fund to underperform relative to the benchmark index or mutual funds with similar investment objectives.
· Foreign Investment Risk—Foreign markets can be more volatile than the U.S. market due to increased risks of adverse issuer, political, regulatory, currency, market or economic developments and can result in greater price volatility and perform differently from financial instruments of U.S. issuers.
TIAA-CREF International Opportunities Fund ■ Summary Prospectus 3
This risk may be heightened in emerging or developing markets. Foreign investments may also be less liquid and more difficult to value than investments in U.S. issuers.
· Emerging Markets Risk—The risk of foreign investment often increases in countries with emerging markets. For example, these countries may have more unstable governments than developed countries, and their economies may be based on only a few industries. Because their financial markets may be very small, share prices of financial instruments in emerging markets countries may be volatile and difficult to determine. Financial instruments of issuers in these countries may be less liquid than those of issuers in more developed countries. In addition, foreign investors such as the Fund are subject to a variety of special restrictions in many emerging markets countries.
Please see the non-summary portion of the Prospectus for more detailed information about the risks described above.
Past performance
Performance information is not available for the Fund because the Fund has less than one calendar year of performance.
For current performance information of each share class, including performance to the most recent month-end, please visit www.tiaa-cref.org.
Portfolio management
Investment Adviser. The Fund’s investment adviser is Teachers Advisors, Inc.
Portfolio Manager. The following person manages the Fund on a day-to-day basis:
Name: | Jason Campbell | |
Title: | Managing Director | |
Experience on Fund: | Since inception in 2013 |
Purchase and sale of Fund shares
Retail Class shares are available for purchase through certain financial intermediaries or by contacting the Fund directly at 800 223-1200 or www.tiaa-cref.org. Retirement Class and Premier Class shares are generally available for purchase through employee benefit plans or other types of savings plans or accounts. Institutional Class shares are available for purchase directly from the Fund by certain eligible investors or through financial intermediaries.
· The minimum initial investment for Retail Class shares is $2,000 for Traditional IRA, Roth IRA and Coverdell accounts and $2,500 for all other account types. Subsequent investments for all account types must be at least $100.
4 Summary Prospectus ■ TIAA-CREF International Opportunities Fund
· There is no minimum initial or subsequent investment for Retirement Class shares. Retirement Class shares are primarily offered through employer-sponsored employee benefit plans.
· There is a $100 million aggregate plan size and $1 million initial minimum plan-level investment requirement for Premier Class shares. Premier Class shares are primarily offered through certain financial intermediaries and employer-sponsored employee benefit plans.
· The minimum initial investment is $2 million and the minimum subsequent investment is $1,000 for Institutional Class shares, unless an investor purchases shares by or through financial intermediaries that have entered into an appropriate agreement with the Fund or its affiliates.
Redeeming or Exchanging Shares. You can redeem (sell) or exchange your shares of the Fund on any day that the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) is open for business. Exchanges may be made for shares of the same share class of other funds offered by the Trust. If your shares are held through a third party, please contact that entity for applicable redemption or exchange requirements. If your shares are held directly with the Fund, contact the Fund directly in writing or by telephone. Redemptions or exchanges involving shares of the Fund held less than 60 calendar days may be subject to the Redemption Fee, addressed in “Fees and expenses” above.
Tax information
The Fund intends to make distributions to shareholders that may be taxed as ordinary income or capital gains. Distributions made to tax-exempt shareholders or shareholders who hold Fund shares in a tax-deferred account are generally not subject to income tax in the current year, but redemptions made from tax-deferred accounts may be subject to income tax.
Payments to broker-dealers and other financial intermediary compensation
If you purchase shares of the Fund through a broker-dealer or other financial intermediary (such as a bank), the Fund and/or its related companies may pay the intermediary for the sale of Fund shares and related services or for other investor services. These payments may create a conflict of interest by influencing the broker-dealer or other intermediary and your salesperson to recommend the Fund over another investment. Ask your salesperson or visit your financial intermediary’s website for more information.
TIAA-CREF International Opportunities Fund ■ Summary Prospectus 5
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| Printed on paper containing recycled fiber | A13795 (3/14) |
A13795 (3/14) |