Durkee bumps Preston for top job with regional’s private-client division. Jeffrey Durkee, a Legg Mason regional director and a board member of the firm’s principal retail brokerage platform until it became part of Citigroup’s Smith Barney last year in a business-unit exchange between Legg Mason and Citi, has replaced Margaret Preston as chairman of Mercantile Bankshares’ private-wealth and investment-management group .

Durkee is “the ideal person to lead our initiatives in private wealth management,” according to Jay Wilson Mercantile’s chairman.

The initiatives Wilson mentions have to do with pushing Mercantile’s wealth-management business beyond its Baltimore base. But it’s not like Mercantile is cutting a swath across the country. Last year the bank-holding company opened a wealth-management office in Frederick, Md., and a couple more in Northern Virginia. In other words it’s staying within its community-banking footprint.

Mercantile isn’t saying much about the departure of Preston, who has led the business for the past four years. “We acknowledge and express our deep appreciation to Margaret for her contributions and dedicated service,” Wilson says in a press release. Preston is expected to leave Mercantile altogether on 1 May.

Baltimore-based Mercantile’s bank affiliates – including Annapolis Bank & Trust, Farmers and Mechanics and Mercantile Potomac – have 240 240 branches in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia southern Pennsylvania. –FWR

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