EFRA vs IFRA

EFRACiShares Environmental Infrastructure and Industrials ETF

IFRAAiShares U.S. 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.

IFRA Most infrastructure funds pick a side: the companies that build the stuff, or the ones that own it. IFRA holds both, stays entirely American, and charges well under the category's typical fee.

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.

IFRA The fund seeks to track an index of U.S. companies with infrastructure exposure, balancing infrastructure enablers and infrastructure asset owners.

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.

• IFRA 0.30% a year, roughly half the typical fee in the infrastructure category and cheaper than bigger-name rivals IGF (0.37%), GII (0.40%) and PAVE (0.47%).
• Tracks the NYSE FactSet U.S. Infrastructure Index, which balances the enablers (builders and suppliers) against the asset owners, rather than betting on the construction cycle alone.
• Roughly 160 holdings spread the theme wide, and the fund pays out quarterly.
• Running since 2018 with over a billion in assets, it sits 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.

• IFRA US-only by design. The overseas toll roads, airports and utilities that global peers like IGF and GII hold are simply not here.
• A narrow slice of the market, so it can move quite differently from a broad US index in either direction.
• Volume is moderate rather than heavy. Limit orders are the sane default, especially around the open and close.

Full EFRA profile⁠

Full IFRA profile⁠