An overwhelming majority of depositors voting at Reading Cooperative Bank’s recent annual meeting approved changes to the bank’s bylaws that would make conversion to a publicly-owned bank a difficult proposition.

Out of 75 depositors voting on the new bylaws, 72 approved measures designed to protect the bank’s cooperative status. Specifically: A supermajority of board members must approve a public conversion; no officer, director or employee may own stock in the company for at least five years and no officer, director or employee may own stock in the company for at least five years following a conversion if they voted to remove any of the proposed protections.

"We were really pleased to see our customers understand what it means to be a cooperative," said President and CEO Julieann Thurlow.

Thurlow said that she and the bank’s board of directors came up with the proposal following both an internal brand investigation and this year’s spate of mutual banks seeking conversions. Feedback from the bank’s customers, employees, directors and community affirmed Reading’s status as a cooperative as a huge selling point, she said.

"Armed with that information, we had a conversation at our board meeting about our independence and the fact that we’re committed to maintaining the bank in its mutual form," Thurlow said. "We debated it, making sure we weren’t harming the institution and weren’t removing the ability to go public or raise capital in the event the bank needed to, but we were removing the personal incentive of anybody now or in the future of doing it with the wrong purpose in mind."

Thurlow said depositors also approved a change that would allow electronic voting or absentee voting, with the board’s approval, at future annual meetings.

The Institution for Savings in Newburyport and Salem Five also have similar bylaws written into their charters.