BILD vs NFRA

BILDCNomura Global Listed Infrastructure ETF

NFRAANorthern Trust STOXX Global Broad Infrastructure ETF

In short

BILD Most infrastructure ETFs hand you an index. BILD hands you a stock picker: global airports, toll roads, pipelines and utilities chosen company by company, at a flat 0.49% fee.

NFRA Most global infrastructure funds stop at utilities and toll roads. NFRA's index goes wider, adding cell towers, data centers, hospitals, prisons and postal routes to the pipelines and railroads, across developed and emerging markets.

Stated mandate

BILD The fund seeks total return through capital growth and income by investing in infrastructure companies.

NFRA The fund seeks to match, before fees and expenses, the performance of the STOXX Global Broad Infrastructure Index.

Why people hold it

• BILD One flat 0.49% fee, with no waiver propping it up. The manager pays custody, audit and most other fund costs out of that number, and there is no 12b-1 charge.sec.govsec.gov 2
• Stock picked, not index copied. The manager researches issuers bottom up and can lean toward the airports, grids or pipelines it rates best.sec.gov
• Global by mandate: normally at least 40% of total assets in non-US securities (30% if conditions warrant), so it is not a US utility fund wearing a world label.sec.gov
• Longer history than the nameplate: it listed in 2023 as a Macquarie fund and came to Nomura through its purchase of Macquarie's US public investments business.sec.gov

• NFRA Five supersectors in one wrapper: communications, energy, utilities, transportation and government outsourcing (hospitals, postal, correctional), across roughly 220 holdings.flexshares.com
• Charges 0.47% net (0.48% gross), net of a waiver through March 1, 2027, below the infrastructure category median.
• The index does real work: half of revenue must come from infrastructure, names must clear a $1 million daily-volume screen, and sector caps limit crowding. Rebalanced quarterly.flexshares.com
• Listed in 2013 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that pays quarterly, it sits among the stronger builds in its peer group.

Worth knowing

• BILD Below the category median on fee, yet index rivals undercut it: IFRA runs 0.30% and IGF 0.37%. The stock picking is what the gap pays for.
• A small fund that trades thinly, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than at the category's giants.
• The theme skews to regulated utilities and transport assets, so rate rulings, interest rates and energy prices steer it more than the broad market does.sec.gov

• NFRA Cheaper options sit on the same shelf: IFRA at 0.30%, IGF at 0.37%, GII at 0.40%. Each tracks a different index with a different definition of infrastructure.
• Broad cuts both ways: telecoms, railroads and postal operators share the portfolio with utilities, so this is not a pure regulated-utility sleeve.flexshares.comflexshares.com 2
• Volume is moderate rather than heavy for the category, which can mean wider spreads on larger orders.

Full BILD profile⁠

Full NFRA profile⁠