EFRA vs GII

EFRACiShares Environmental Infrastructure and Industrials ETF

GIIAState Street SPDR S&P Global Infrastructure ETF

In short

EFRA Most infrastructure funds buy the toll road. EFRA buys the suppliers: global companies selling energy efficiency, emissions control and resource-optimization solutions, screened by a green-revenue index and priced under the typical theme fund.

GII Toll roads, airports, pipelines and power grids in one ticker. GII has tracked the S&P Global Infrastructure Index since 2007, an early entrant in the category, and charges less than the typical infrastructure fund.

Stated mandate

EFRA The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. and non-U.S. companies providing infrastructure and industrials solutions intended to support energy efficiency, emissions mitigation, pollution reduction, or land and resource optimization.

GII The fund seeks to track the total return of the S&P Global Infrastructure Index. That index provides exposure to large publicly listed infrastructure companies across transportation, utilities, and energy infrastructure.

Why people hold it

• EFRA Reads infrastructure as the supply chain: firms providing energy efficiency, emissions mitigation, pollution reduction and land or resource optimization solutions, US and non-US.
• Cheaper than the typical infrastructure theme fund at 0.47% against a 0.55% cohort median, and level with Global X's PAVE for a narrower mandate.
• Spreads the theme across roughly 80 global names, tracked to the FTSE Green Revenues Select Infrastructure and Industrials Index rather than a hand-picked list.ishares.com
• Sits in the upper half of a crowded infrastructure cohort, with a below-median fee doing much of the work.

• GII Tracks an index of 75 of the largest listed infrastructure companies, screened for float and liquidity, spread across transportation, utilities and energy infrastructure in developed and emerging markets.ssga.com
• 0.40% a year against a 0.55% median for infrastructure ETFs. The cheap end of a category that often is not cheap.
• Live since 2007, so the record covers the financial crisis, a decade of low rates and the 2022 rate shock. It rates among the strongest implementations in its infrastructure peer group.

Worth knowing

• EFRA Small and lightly traded next to the category's giants, so bid-ask spreads can run wider.
• Not an income-style infrastructure holding: distributions arrive once or twice a year, and the book leans industrial, so it tracks the capex cycle more than a utility-style portfolio.
• The plain-vanilla iShares siblings cost less: IFRA at 0.30% and IGF at 0.37%, without the green-revenue screen.

• GII IGF follows the same index for 0.37%, three basis points less. GII's own trading is moderate rather than heavy, so spreads count alongside the fee gap.
• Roughly 70 stocks across three sectors and several currencies. A focused, globally scattered book that can behave quite differently from a broad world equity fund.ssga.com
• Distributions arrive on an annual or semiannual schedule, so cash lands in lumps rather than monthly.

Full EFRA profile⁠

Full GII profile⁠