Morningstar and Houlihan Lokey Launch Daily CLO Valuation Indexes

Event summary

  • Morningstar and Houlihan Lokey are collaborating to create daily valuation indexes for the CLO market.
  • The Morningstar Houlihan CLO Indexes will combine Morningstar's index design with Houlihan Lokey's valuation expertise.
  • The global CLO market is estimated at $1.5 trillion in assets and could exceed $3 trillion by 2030.
  • Morningstar acquired CRSP Market Indexes in February 2026, adding benchmarks for over $3 trillion in US equities.

The big picture

The collaboration addresses a critical gap in the rapidly expanding CLO market, where consistent benchmarks and transparent pricing have lagged behind asset growth. As private credit becomes an increasingly important segment of global investment portfolios, reliable valuation tools are becoming essential for risk management and performance assessment.

What we're watching

Market Adoption
How quickly investors will embrace these new CLO benchmarks as standard performance measures.
Competitive Response
Whether other index providers or data firms will develop competing CLO valuation products.
Regulatory Scrutiny
The extent to which regulators may examine these indexes as de facto standards for CLO performance reporting.