EFRA vs NFRA

EFRACiShares Environmental Infrastructure and Industrials ETF

NFRAANorthern Trust STOXX Global Broad 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.

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

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.

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

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.

• 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

• 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.

• 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 EFRA profile⁠

Full NFRA profile⁠