497K 1 d712763d497k.htm STATE FARM GROWTH FUND State Farm Growth Fund

State Farm

Associates’ Funds Trust—Growth Fund

  

Summary Prospectus

April 1, 2019

Ticker: STFGX

(Offered to the Agents and Employees of the State Farm Insurance Companies and their families)

 

Before you invest, you may want to review the fund’s prospectus and statement of additional information, which contain more information about the fund and its risks. You can find the fund’s prospectus, statement of additional information and other information about the fund online at https://www.statefarm.com/finances/mutual-funds/manage-your-accounts/prospectuses-reports/associate-funds/. You can also get this information at no cost by calling 1-800-447-0740 or by sending an email request to mutualfunds@statefarm.com. The current prospectus and statement of additional information, dated April 1, 2019, are incorporated by reference into this summary prospectus.

Beginning on January 1, 2021, as permitted by regulations adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission, paper copies of the Funds’ annual and semi-annual shareholder reports will no longer be sent by mail, unless you specifically request paper copies of the reports. Instead, the reports will be made available on a website, and you will be notified by mail each time a report is posted and provided with a website link to access the report. If you already elected to receive shareholder reports electronically, you will not be affected by this change and you need not take any action. You may elect to receive shareholder reports and other communications from a Fund electronically anytime by calling 1-800-447-0740. You may elect to receive all future reports in paper free of charge. You may call 1-800-447-0740 to request that you continue to receive paper copies of your shareholder reports. Your election to receive reports in paper will apply to all Funds held with State Farm Mutual Funds.

 

Investment Objective:    State Farm Associates’ Funds Trust Growth Fund (the “Fund” or the “Growth Fund”) seeks long-term growth of capital, which may be supplemented by income.

What are the costs of investing in the Fund?

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if you buy and hold shares of the Fund.

Shareholder Fees

(fees paid directly from your investment)

 

Maximum sales charge

     None  

Redemption fee

     None  

Exchange fee

     None  

Maximum account fee

     None

 

*

For certain types of accounts, if your account balance falls below $5,000 at the close of business on the second business day of the last month in a calendar quarter (i.e., the second business day of March, June, September and December), the account will be charged an Account Fee of $10.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses

(expenses that you pay each year as a percentage

of the value of your investment)

 

Management fees

     0.10

Other Expenses

     0.02

Total Annual Fund Operating Expenses

     0.12

Example    This example is intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the Fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The example assumes you invest $10,000 in the Fund for the time periods indicated and then redeem all of your shares at the end of those periods. The example also assumes that your investment has a 5% return each year and that operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

 

After
1 year
   After
3 years
   After
5 years
   After
10 years

$12

   $39    $68    $154

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 most recent fiscal year, the Fund’s portfolio turnover rate was 0% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

The Fund invests under normal circumstances at least 80% of its assets in common stocks and other income-producing equity securities. State Farm Investment Management Corp. (the “Manager”), investment adviser to the Fund, chooses stocks for the Fund’s portfolio for their long-term potential to generate capital gains, but may also consider a stock’s long-term potential to generate growth in income. Although there is no restriction on the size of the companies in which the Fund invests, ordinarily most of the Fund’s investments are in companies with market capitalizations of at least $1.5 billion at the time of investment.

 

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In making investment decisions on specific securities, the Manager looks for companies with one or more of the following characteristics:

 

   

Strong cash flow and a recurring revenue stream

 

   

A strong industry position

 

   

A strong financial position

 

   

Strong management with a clearly defined strategy

 

   

Capability to develop new or superior products or services

In general, the Manager employs a long-term ownership strategy, which emphasizes buying and holding securities as long-term investments. However, the Manager may sell securities the Fund holds at any time and for a variety of reasons, such as to secure gains, limit losses, or redeploy assets into more promising opportunities.

Principal Risks of Investing in the Fund

Investors who purchase shares of the Fund are subject to various risks, and it is possible for you to lose money by investing in the Fund. An investment in this Fund is not a deposit of any bank or other insured depository institution and is not insured or guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (the “FDIC”) or another government agency. An investor in the Fund is subject to the following types of risks:

 

·  

Management Risk.     The assessment by the Fund’s investment adviser of the securities to be purchased or sold by the Fund may prove incorrect, resulting in losses or poor performance, even in a rising market.

 

·  

Market Risk.     Stock prices may fluctuate widely over short or even extended periods in response to company, market, or economic news. Stock markets also tend to move in cycles, with periods of rising stock prices and periods of falling stock prices.

 

·  

Liquidity Risk.     The investment adviser to the Fund may have difficulty selling securities the Fund holds at the time it would like to sell, and at the value the Fund has placed on those securities.

 

·  

Tax Risk.     The Fund’s long-term ownership strategy historically has resulted in a low rate of turnover in its portfolio. Therefore, the Fund has accumulated a large amount of unrealized capital gains, and distribution of such gains to shareholders may be larger than the capital gain distributions made by other similar mutual funds. Should the Manager sell any appreciated assets, shareholders generally will receive their proportional share of the resulting realized capital gains regardless of how long they owned such shares. As a result, unless you are purchasing shares of the Fund through a tax-advantaged account (such as an IRA), buying such shares at a time when the Fund has unrealized gains might eventually cost you money in taxes.

 

·  

Long-term Ownership Strategy Risk.     The Fund’s investment approach generally emphasizes buying and holding securities over long periods. As such, the Fund could continue to hold certain securities through adverse cycles for those securities rather than selling them, which could cause the Fund to underperform compared to a fund that has invested in similar securities but actively shifts its portfolio assets to take advantage of market opportunities and that does not seek reduced portfolio turnover. In determining which portfolio securities to sell, the Manager considers, and seeks to mitigate, the amount of capital gains that may be realized by such sale.

An investment in the Fund may be appropriate for you if you intend to maintain your investment for many years and through multiple stock market cycles. Because of stock market volatility, the Fund may not be a suitable investment if you have a short-term investment horizon or if you are unwilling to accept fluctuations in share price, including significant declines over a given period.

Investment Results

The following bar chart and table illustrate certain risks of investing in the Fund. The bar chart shows the changes in the Fund’s returns year by year. The table compares the Fund’s average annual total returns for the periods listed to a broad-based market index. This information is intended to help you assess the variability of Fund returns over the periods listed (and consequently, the potential rewards and risks of a Fund investment). The Fund’s past performance (before and after taxes) does not necessarily indicate how it will perform in the future. Updated performance information for the Growth Fund is available at https://www.statefarm.com/finances/mutual-funds/resources/associate-funds-performance or by calling 1-800-447-0740.

 

LOGO

The Fund’s best and worst quarters during the last 10 years were:

Best quarter: 12.70%,

during the second quarter of 2009.

Worst quarter: -14.26%,

during the third quarter of 2011.

The following table shows certain Average Annual Total Returns on an investment in the Fund compared to changes in the Standard & Poor’s 500® Stock Index for the 1-, 5- and 10-year periods ended December 31, 2018. The after-tax returns are intended to show the impact of assumed federal income taxes on an

 

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investment in the Fund. “Return After Taxes on Distributions” shows the effect of taxable distributions, but assumes that you still hold Fund shares at the end of the period and that you do not have any taxable gain or loss on the disposition of your Fund shares. “Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares” shows the effect of both taxable distributions and any taxable gain or loss that you would realize if you purchased Fund shares at the beginning of the specified period and sold Fund shares at the end of the specified period. After-tax returns are calculated using the historical highest individual federal marginal income tax rates and do not reflect the impact of state and local taxes. Actual after-tax returns depend on an investor’s tax situation and may differ from those shown, and after-tax returns are not relevant to investors who hold their Fund shares through tax deferred arrangements, such as individual retirement accounts. In some instances the “Return After Taxes on Distributions and Sale of Fund Shares” may be greater than the “Return Before Taxes” because the investor is assumed to be able to use the capital loss on the sale of the Fund shares to offset other taxable gains.

 

Average Annual Total Returns

(For the periods ended December 31, 2018)

 
Growth Fund    1 Year      5 Year      10 Year  

Return Before Taxes

     -5.31      6.53      9.72

Return After Taxes on Distributions

     -6.22      5.25      8.84

Return After Taxes on Distributions & Sale of Fund Shares

     -2.51      4.98      7.92

S&P 500® Index (reflects no deduction for expenses or taxes)

     -4.38      8.49      13.11

 

Fund Management

The Manager serves as investment adviser to the Fund and uses an individual portfolio manager to manage the Fund’s investments.

 

Portfolio Manager

 

Length of
Service

 

Primary Title

Paul Eckley

  Since 1991   Senior Vice President—Investments, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares

Minimum Investments:

 

To open an account by check

   $250 (per fund)

To open an account by payroll deduction

   $50 (per fund)

Subsequent investments by check, automated clearing house (ACH) or automatic investing

   $50 (per fund)

Subsequent investment by payroll deduction

   $50 (per fund)

On any day the New York Stock Exchange is open for regular trading, you may sell (redeem) your shares by sending a written request to State Farm Mutual Funds, P.O. Box 219548, Kansas City, Missouri 64121-9548; telephoning 1-800-447-0740, if you have telephone redemption privileges; faxing your request to (816) 471-4832; or by visiting www.statefarm.com and following the instructions presented on the screen.

Tax Information

The Fund intends to make distributions that may be taxed for federal income tax purposes as ordinary income or capital gains. Dividends and capital gain distributions you receive from the Fund also may be subject to state and local taxes.

 

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