Julieann Thurlow
President and CEO, Reading Cooperative Bank
Years experience: 38
Reading Cooperative Bank and Wakefield Co-Operative Bank are proving banks don’t need to be big to see benefits in consolidating. The two mutual banks plan to combine form a new mutual bank with $1.2 billion in assets and 14 branches across 11 communities north of Boston.
The newly formed organization will retain the Reading Cooperative name and will be led by Reading Cooperative Bank’s president and CEO of 18 years, Julieann Thurlow. However, she’ll give up her “president” title to current Wakefield Co-Operative President and CEO Jeffrey A. Worth.
Unlike in many recent mutual bank tie-ups, both institutions have bylaws that do not allow for them to take the ever-popular mutual holding company merger route that’s seen the sudden growth of players like the $6.5 billion-asset, four-bank Hometown Financial Group.
The new Reading Cooperative Bank will continue to operate as a mutual cooperative bank assuming the combination is finalized, as predicted, in the second quarter of this year.
Q: How did the deal go from preliminary talks all the way to the finish line?
A: Wakefield is right next door – in fact, across the lake. If it’s more than a mile, I’d be surprised. We had actually spoken with them a couple of years ago when we acquired the branches that we bought in Lynn and Nahant, recognizing that we now had two distinct markets that were not connected and that we were thinking about how to join our markets together. We’ve been friends with the folks at Wakefield for eons. We have the same organizational type. We are both mutuals. We’re also both cooperative banks. We also both had made modifications to our bylaws to protect the mutuality of our institutions, and so that’s why, when you see the language in our announcement, it is not talking about merger, it’s not talking about acquisition, it’s talking about combination and partnership. Because as mutuals, it is up to our depositors to determine whether or not they approve the combination, and they can see the benefits of our two mutual organizations coming together. There is no price that’s being paid. It is literally the combination of assets, liabilities and capital and a joint market.
When you look at it through that lens, it’s a little different. There are no winners and losers. It creates the least upset for consumers and the best advantage from a marketing standpoint, we actually both have the same core system. We have the same mobile banking system. So, there should be very little interruption as far as consumers and only advantages: access to more products and services than each of us offer individually to our consumers and then, obviously, a broader market that’s now available to each.
Q: Now that you have been able to go into this partnership, what improvements do you hope to make to the institution?
A: Reading has a robust business lending capacity and cash management services, and other products and services that we think will be additive to consumers in the Lynnfield, Melrose and Wakefield markets. They’re rich with small-business owners and businesses You’ve got Route 1 – a lot of C&I business opportunities there. So I think a lot of the products and services that we’ve been able to develop are something that will be attractive to the folks in the Wakefield market. And the Lynn and the Nahant branch customers have to drive a fair distance to get to the next other Reading Cooperative Bank locations. People tend to live a couple towns away from where they work, and I think we’ve now created a footprint between both of us that actually will provide a continuity of service for those consumers, and they’ll have access to banking anywhere they want to.
Q: You mentioned the branches. How important was it for you to maintain those locations?
A: It was a priority that we actually maintain our combined presence in all of our communities: maintaining the locations, maintaining the people who are there, providing services to customers. People bank with community banks because they’re local. We just did our [annual] customer survey and the feedback, loud and clear, is our customers don’t want us to become a big bank. They want us to remain close and tight with the community, to provide support for charitable endeavors within our community. All of that does matter to people that choose to bank at community banks.
Out of 340 [survey] responses, 160 people could name the person that served them on a regular basis and gave them a personal shout out because they really had a connected relationships at a time when we do most of our things on our mobile phones. To actually hear from people that that human contact does matter, and how they’re served, and the fact that they feel valued is really important.
Q: Do you think that we will see more of this type of combination as mutuals look to team together, but not be purchased or acquired, when it seems like larger banks are intent on going into newer territories, eating up smaller institutions?
A: There’s an organization that’s come together, a group of mutuals called “Mutual Matters,” that are actually looking at ways that they can drive down costs for mutual institutions to do things together. You also see the mutual holding company model that some of the other banks have put together, where you share the common expenses but the banks continue to operate separately underneath. What this transaction that we’re in the middle of, this partnership with Wakefield, demonstrates that you don’t have to necessarily go the mutual holding company route. You can actually just develop an understanding between boards that have the same expectation or desire for their community to be served, but actually see an opportunity in in where there is an overlap, where opportunity presents itself to expand and deliver services together.
Thurlow’s Five Favorite Maine Towns from Her Childhood
- Rockland
- Belfast
- Boothbay
- Lubec
- Owls Head