Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The credit markets seizure is hurting companies outside Wall Street as executives from Amgen Inc., Qwest Communications International Inc. and Sirius XM Radio Inc. cope with the soaring cost of money.

Officials at Cablevision Systems Corp., Amgen and Qwest said they may use cash on hand to pay off debt as it comes due instead of rolling it over. Companies that must raise money, including Sirius and NextWave Wireless Inc., are paying as much as 14 percent in annual interest, the highest since 2002. NRG Energy Inc. canceled plans to refinance as much as $2 billion.

Corporate bond sales this month are running at less than half the pace analysts anticipated as investors flee all but the safest of government bonds. In a week when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch & Co. was taken over and the government assumed control of American International Group Inc., companies looking for new money have few options.

``Our debt markets are close to frozen,'' former U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, chairman of private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, said in a telephone interview this week.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke proposed moving troubled assets from the balance sheets of American financial companies into a new institution. Today, the Treasury announced a $50 billion program to insure the holdings of money-market mutual funds for a year.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox said the SEC will consider more rules to guarantee market liquidity. Today, the SEC temporarily banned short-selling of financial shares until Oct. 2.

$234.5 Billion

The crisis is pushing U.S. borrowing costs to the highest since at least November 2002. The average yield on the most actively traded investment-grade bonds has risen to 7.97 percent from 5.99 percent a year ago, according to the Finra-Bloomberg Active U.S. Corporate Bond index. Yields on bonds rated below investment grade jumped to 13.8 percent from 9.17 percent.

That's going to hurt as companies seek to refinance $234.5 billion of bonds maturing by year-end, according to Fitch Ratings estimates based on Aug. 30 data. A year ago, companies had $165.5 billion in debt coming due. Borrowing costs will rise as much as 30 percent for some lower-rated companies, according to Mariarosa Verde, a Fitch analyst in New York.

Qwest, the third-largest local phone company, may pay off debt instead of refinancing because of ``shaky'' credit markets, Chief Executive Officer Edward Mueller said at a conference in New York this week. Denver-based Qwest has more than $1 billion in debt coming due by August 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Amgen, Sirius

``The markets today will make us have to evaluate any debt,'' Mueller said.

Cablevision, the New York-area cable-television company, may use cash and existing credit lines to pay off $1.7 billion in bonds maturing next year instead because some borrowers have to pay more than 10 percent annual interest, CEO James Dolan said.

Amgen, the largest biotechnology company, retired $1 billion in debt this year and has another $1 billion expiring in November, said David Polk, spokesman for the Thousand Oaks, California-based business. ``We can repay the November maturity with cash and may do so depending upon market conditions,'' he said.

Sirius, the New York satellite radio company created in the $2.76 billion all-stock purchase of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. in July, has $300 million of bonds convertible into stock maturing in February. CEO Mel Karmazin said this week he plans to refinance the company's debt soon, although at an interest rate ``far higher than we'd like to pay.''

Sirius debt coming due in February has a 2.5 percent coupon; the $550 million maturing in 2014 is at 7 percent.

`Tedious'

NRG, Texas's second-largest power producer, cited the ``extraordinary financial environment'' when it canceled plans to refinance this week.

Verizon Communications Inc., the New York-based phone company seeking to raise money for its $28.1 billion purchase of wireless carrier Alltel Corp., is working to get the deal closed by year-end, President Denny Strigl said yesterday.

``Is it a tedious process? Yes,'' he said. ``Are we any less confident? No.''

DirecTV Group Inc. is unlikely to borrow more because it wouldn't be able to get rates close to the 8.375 percent it paid to borrow $910 million in its most recent deal, said Liberty Media Corp. CEO Greg Maffei, who sits on the El Segundo, California-based satellite-TV company's board.

No Sales

No bonds were sold in the U.S. this week, the first time that has happened since at least 1999, Bloomberg data show. Sales in Europe dropped 98 percent to the lowest weekly level in almost six years. September has only seen $18.8 billion in investment- grade offerings in the U.S., down from $55.7 billion in the same period in 2007.

Before the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, analysts at Barclays Capital Inc. predicted as much as $100 billion of investment-grade issuance in September and $275 billion for the remainder of the year, according to an Aug. 21 report.

``Jumping in here is too risky right now,'' said Bill Larkin, who oversees $250 million in fixed-income assets at Cabot Money Management in Salem, Massachusetts.

Short-term debt costs also have soared. Average yields on top-rated seven-day commercial paper jumped 1.38 percentage points this week to 3.46 percent, the highest since January, before falling today to 2.97 percent, Bloomberg data show.

GE Capital, the financing arm of Fairfield, Connecticut- based General Electric Co., the world's third-largest company, is willing to pay 2.5 percent to issue 30-day commercial paper, the most since March 14.

`Lucky'

Companies that pulled off recent bond sales have a sense of relief. NextWave, a seller of high-speed communications gear in San Diego, won commitments to raise $100 million of notes with a 14 percent rate.

``It was financing we needed to fund our business,'' Chief Financial Officer George Alex said in an interview yesterday.

Liquor maker Pernod Ricard SA was ``lucky to get the financing for the Absolut acquisition at the beginning of the year,'' CEO Patrick Ricard said. There is ``no way'' the Paris- based company could buy it if it tried now, he said.

``It's prudent to expect that people are going to be tighter with credit,'' Arne Haak, finance chief at low-fare carrier AirTran Holdings Inc., said in an interview.

Orlando, Florida-based AirTran doesn't need more credit now, after raising $147 million in the second quarter selling stock and convertible notes and receiving a $150 million credit facility, he said.

``We don't think it's going to affect us,'' Haak said. Still, with the volatility in oil prices, airlines ``would rather have more liquidity than less,'' he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Gabrielle Coppola in New York at gcoppola@bloomberg.net; Amy Thomson in New York at athomson6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 19, 2008 12:44 EDT