MOODY'S CORP. New York, New York This Firm Rates High In Sales And Earnings.(THE NEW AMERICA)

Byline: STEVE WATKINS

If you're running a company, now's a good time to borrow money.

Interest rates are low, so locking in rates now helps a company's balance sheet. Companies are borrowing now more than ever.

Moody's Corp. gets a chunk of that. The firm assigns a grade to the creditworthiness of businesses and municipalities that issue debt.

It's one of two ratings firms that dominate the credit ratings market; Standard & Poor's Corp. is the other.

The better those ratings, the lower the interest rate issuers have to pay. And low rates have companies clamoring to tap capital markets to issue debt.

Globally, public companies boosted their public debt outstanding last year to $38 trillion, up …