Mercantile Bankshares Corp.

2 Hopkins Plaza

Year founded: 1969

Industry: Banking

Post 200 Category: Top Financial Companies

Revenue: n/a

Net Income/Loss: $229.41 Million

Earnings per share: $2.87

Dividend: $1.38

Stockholder equity: $1.92 Billion

Auditor: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Stock: MRBK

Assets: $14.43 Billion

Market capitalization: $3.95 Billion

52-week high: 53.09 12/29/2004

52-week low: 40.31 4/15/2004

President and CEO: Edward J. Kelly III

Vice chairman: Alexander T. Mason

Employees: 3479

Local employees: 854

Description: Mercantile Bankshares is the largest independent banking company in Maryland, with $14.4 billion in assets and 226 branches. It is a holding company that owns 13 community banks that serve the District, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware. It also has a lending office in York, Pa., not far from the Maryland line. The company has about 85 fewer employees than a year ago.

Developments: Mercantile reorganized the 20 community banks it owned last year into 13 banks, a consolidation management believes will make its subsidiaries big enough to be more efficient but not so large that they lose their community-bank flavor. In January, the company announced that it had agreed to buy Community Bank of Northern Virginia in a $212 million cash-and-stock deal. If completed as expected by the end of June, the acquisition will give a substantial boost to Mercantile's profile in Northern Virginia, which the company considers an important high-growth market. The deal will add $880 million in assets and more than a dozen branches to the five Mercantile already owns in Northern Virginia. There is one deal the bank did not attempt: Mercantile was one of a handful of bidders for the scandal-ridden Riggs Bank early last year, but it withdrew after a Senate investigation revealed last summer that Riggs had substantial regulatory problems, including widespread violations of federal laws designed to alert law enforcement officials to suspicious activities that could be money laundering.

Executive Compensation
President and CEO: Edward J. Kelly III
Total Cash: $1,309,600.00
Total Compensation: $3,293,536.00