Atlas Air, Gilead Sciences and NYC Finance Department Named Pinnacle Award Finalists for Treasury Excellence

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Association for Financial Professionals

Aug 22, 2013, 08:00 ET

Annual AFP Prize Recognizes Leading Treasury and Finance Operations

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Atlas Air, Gilead Sciences, and the New York City Finance Department are finalists for the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) 2013 Pinnacle Award. Sponsored by Wells Fargo & Company, the Pinnacle Awards have recognized excellence in treasury and finance each year since 1997.

Finalists were selected based on their dynamic solutions that helped their treasury and finance operations run more efficiently and effectively. The AFP Pinnacle Grand Prize winner will be named Oct. 27 at the AFP Annual Conference in Las Vegas.

Wells Fargo will make a $10,000 donation to a charity of the winner's choice. Danny Peltz, executive vice president and head of Wells Fargo Treasury Management, and Jim Kaitz, AFP's president and CEO, will host the award ceremony.

"AFP is pleased to honor the 2013 Pinnacle Award winners," Kaitz said. "The AFP Annual Conference is the most important event in treasury and finance and the solutions presented by the New York City Finance Department, Atlas Air and Gilead Sciences certainly meet that high standard."

Atlas Air, the world's largest operator of wide-body freighter aircraft, displayed agility and quick thinking when a $2 billion purchase order in 2006 was delayed nearly seven years. During the depths of the 2009 financial crisis, Atlas Air arranged financing in a particularly turbulent credit market and without a corporate credit rating. Forgoing standard commercial financing, Atlas achieved its goal by securing the backing of the U.S. Export-Import Bank as a domestic carrier, an industry precedent. Atlas saved $175 million in interest through its innovative financing solution.

Gilead Sciences earned its Pinnacle award by scaling its treasury group to match its rapidly growing market capitalization—in excess of $70 billion in just a few years. Gilead Sciences' eight-member treasury team automated many manual processes, including multiple, unstandardized wire platforms. Along the way to improving real-time visibility into cash balances, the treasury team adopted new technology in less than eight months for more than 130 bank accounts in 30 countries with $2 billion in investments and $3.5 billion in foreign currency.

The New York City Finance Department centralized data for bills and payments and improved speed, accuracy and customer service by creating the first city agency solely responsible for payments expertise, policy and procurement, providing guidance and services to agencies needing payment solutions. As the department developed fast, affordable and reliable electronic payments functionality to collect $49 billion of receipts generated by 36 individual agencies totaling 29 million individual payments, it also strengthened regulatory compliance.

ABOUT AFP®
The Association for Financial Professionals^®(AFP) is the professional society that represents finance executives globally. Headquartered outside Washington, DC, AFP sets the standards for the Certified Treasury Professional^® and Certified Corporate FP&A Professional™ credentials. The quarterly AFP Corporate Cash Indicators™ serve as a bellwether of economic growth. The AFP Annual Conference is the largest gathering of corporate finance professionals in the world.

About Wells Fargo Treasury Management

Wells Fargo Treasury Management products and services help large corporate, middle market, and small business customers efficiently manage their businesses and financial assets. Wells Fargo offers solutions that address today's treasury department priorities, including optimizing working capital, improving cash forecasting and visibility, automating processes, increasing control and compliance, and managing an ever-broadening set of risks. Greenwich Associates named Wells Fargo a 2011 Greenwich Quality Leader in Large Corporate Treasury Management. According to 2011 Greenwich statistics, Wells Fargo is used as a domestic or international treasury management provider by 54 percent of large U.S. companies.

SOURCE Association for Financial Professionals