Dow Jones Newswires | Harris Financial Corp. has opened a private-banking office in Rockford. The move follows Harris’s acquisition last month of the deposits and some of the liabilities of Amcore Bank after regulators closed Amcore, which had been based in Rockford.

Kathy Weber, formerly head of Amcore’s private-banking business, will lead a team of portfolio managers, trust administrators, private bankers and wealth advisers as head of Harris Private Bank-Rockford.

“Kathy is a proven leader in wealth management and an executive whose
business and civic life is deeply woven in the fabric of the Rockford
community,” Terry Jenkins, president and chief executive of Harris
Private Bank, said in a press release.

Weber, a native of Rockford, has been a wealth manager for about 25
years.

Chicago-based Harris Private Bank, part of Toronto-based BMO Financial
Group through its Harris Financial Corp. subsidiary, provides
investment, trust, banking and financial-planning services to
high-net-worth clients.

Amcore collapsed under the weight of bad property and construction loans
that resulted in losses of about $320 million over the past two years.
The federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency closed Amcore on
April 23 and made the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation its
receiver. Harris acquired it from the FDIC on the same day.