HP, Microsoft, Ontario Power Are Pinnacle Award Finalists for Treasury Excellence

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2011/PRNewswire/ -- Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Ontario Power Generation are the three finalists to win the grand prize of the Association for Financial Professionals' 2011 Pinnacle Award, which recognizes excellence in treasury and finance. The AFP Pinnacle Award is sponsored by Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC).

The three finalists were selected because their dynamic solutions made treasury and finance operations run more efficiently and effectively at their organization. One of the three finalists will be named Grand Prize Winner Nov. 6 at the AFP Annual Conference in Boston.

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

"AFP is pleased to honor the 2011 Pinnacle Award winners," said Kaitz. "The solutions presented by Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Ontario Power Generation are both visionary and trend-setting and underscore treasury and finance's ability to serve the strategic needs of the organization."

Hewlett-Packard
HP's corporate treasury and finance team built an interest rate risk management model to capture various factors that helped model interest rate movements and their implication to the company's cash and debt portfolio. As a result, HP increased net interest income, reduced volatility introduced into the P&L as a result of the interest rate changes, and improved predictability to help executive management in planning. The solution also imposes discipline on decisions about managing interest rate risk.

Microsoft
Microsoft's treasury and finance team needed to be able to transfer money between banks quickly, manage counterparty risk more effectively and achieve greater efficiency in financial processing. In April 2011, it implemented ISO XML 20022 Version 2 based bank statements delivered over SWIFTNet and now has over 75 percent of the company's U.S.-based cash visible. Microsoft will enjoy a return on investment of 44x over a three-year period. And with a single data pipe, internal IT support costs were greatly reduced.

Ontario Power Generation
OPG treasury executed ground-breaking financing with unique technical features resulting in considerable savings. The most critical element was repositioning traditional construction project financing to longer-term to corporate finance. The project gained acceptance from lenders and agencies as a hybrid entity, enabling periodic financing over construction, versus pre-financing. This acceptance permitted addressing short-term financing requirements during construction through a commercial paper program, rather than with traditional bank financing, resulting in an approximate savings of 100 bps. Neither OPG's lending group nor government agencies had seen this solution before in project financing.

ABOUT AFP®
The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), headquartered outside Washington, D.C., serves a network of more than 16,000, members with news, economic research and data, treasury certification programs, networking events, financial analytical tools, training, and public policy representation to legislators and regulators. AFP is the daily resource for the finance profession (www.afponline.org).

AFP's global reach extends to over 150,000 treasury and financial professionals worldwide, including AFP of Canada; London-based gtnews, an on-line resource for the treasury and finance community; and bobsguide, a financial IT solutions network.

SOURCE Association for Financial Professionals