Though it does not intend to issue common stock, Guilford Savings Bank plans to reorganize as a stock bank and has received approval from Connecticut’s banking commissioner to move forward.

The Department of Banking issued a notice on Nov. 15 announcing that Commissioner Jorge Ramos had approved or decided not to disapprove each of the steps needed for the reorganization. The steps include forming a mutual holding company to be known as GSB Mutual Holding Co.; forming a reorganized savings institution as a stock bank, which will retain the name Guilford Savings Bank; establishing a subsidiary holding company to be known as GSB Bancorp; and merging the existing mutual bank into the stock bank.

Guilford Savings Bank announced on Nov. 4 that the bank’s depositors had approved the reorganization. In a letter to depositors before the vote, GSB President and CEO Timothy Geelan said the reorganization would not involve the sale of common stock, adding that the bank had “no intent to issue any stock now or in the future or any plans to ‘go public.'”

“GSB’s primary goal in restructuring into a mutual holding company is to preserve and enhance its mutual structure, which it believes benefits all of its constituents – its customers, employees and the communities it serves,” Geelan wrote in the letter. “The proposed reorganization will allow us to retain all of the fundamental characteristics of a mutual banking institution while expanding our flexibility to engage in strategic transactions and to raise capital – without selling common stock.”

The bank also applied to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston for approval, with the comment period ending Nov. 4. The Federal Reserve has not yet published its decision.

With about $821 million in assets, Guilford Savings Bank has six branches in Guilford, Branford, Madison and Old Saybrook.