The Simsbury Bank & Trust Co. has positioned itself for further expansion with its reorganization into a holding company structure.

It weathered the storm of mergers and acquisitions over the past several years, and now the Simsbury Bank & Trust Co. has positioned itself for the possibility of further expansion.

The bank announced last week that it completed a reorganization into a holding company structure earlier this month. It is now wholly owned by SBT Bancorp Inc. Under the plan of reorganization, stock certificates representing shares of common stock of the bank now represent the right to receive an equal number of shares of the common stock of SBT Bancorp. Existing certificates for shares of the common stock of the bank need not be exchanged for new certificates of SBT Bancorp.

The reorganization will give the company the flexibility to issue trust-preferred shares as a way to raise capital as it grows, according to Susan Presutti of Simsbury Bank & Trust. After expanding in the late 1990s from the bank’s headquarters in Simsbury to two additional branches in Avon and Granby, it is now opening more branches in the area. A branch in Canton opened last November, and one in Bloomfield is scheduled to open in May or June. There are no concrete plans for additional expansion, according to bank President and Chief Executive Officer Martin Geitz, but the bank will continue to look at opportunities as its customer base grows.

The bank has experienced success with its new branch in Canton, Presutti said. It is involved with the Canton Chamber of Commerce and started out with hundreds of existing customers who had been banking at Simsbury Bank & Trust’s branch in nearby Avon.

“The market has generally reacted quite favorably to the progress of Simsbury Bank over the last three or four years,” said John Carusone, president of the Hartford-based Bank Analysis Center.

While the bank plans to use its reorganization to raise more capital, establishing a holding company can be helpful for other reasons, Carusone said. It can facilitate diversification into related financial service lines and facilitate mergers and acquisitions, and it permits the repurchase of the bank’s own stock when that becomes necessary because of stock market valuation.

The new company, SBT Bancorp, in connection with the reorganization, will succeed to the registration of the bank’s securities and begin to file reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, on March 7, shares of SBT Bancorp common stock began to be quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol SBTB.

The Simsbury Bank & Trust Co. has about $200 million in assets.