GLIX vs NFRA

GLIXDLazard Listed Infrastructure ETF

NFRAANorthern Trust STOXX Global Broad Infrastructure ETF

In short

GLIX Lazard's 2025 entry into listed infrastructure: an equity portfolio built around the companies that own and run the world's plumbing. At 0.96%, it prices like a specialist on a shelf stacked with cheap index trackers.

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

GLIX The portfolio primarily holds equity securities, especially common stocks, issued by 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

• GLIX The mandate is narrow and readable: equity, mostly common stock, of infrastructure companies. What the label says is what the portfolio holds.
• Built as a standard 1940 Act fund, so tax time means a 1099, not the K-1 paperwork that comes with some pipeline partnerships.
• Cash comes back on a quarterly schedule, a steadier rhythm than funds that pay once a year.

• 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

• GLIX At 0.96%, it costs roughly triple the biggest index rivals (IGF at 0.37%, IFRA at 0.30%). That gap is the bar this portfolio has to clear.
• A 2025 launch with a small asset base and light trading. Spreads can widen, so limit orders and a glance at the day's volume matter more here.
• It opened in October 2025, so there is no long record yet showing how the strategy behaves through a full rate or credit cycle.

• 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 GLIX profile⁠

Full NFRA profile⁠