Santander posts 3 percent fall in second quarter net profit on Popular costs

MADRID (Reuters) - Banco Santander <SAN.MC> posted on Wednesday a 3 percent decline in second-quarter net profit from a year earlier after being hit by restructuring costs of 300 million euros (£266.45 million) due mainly to the integration of Banco Popular.

Santander - which took over the troubled Spanish lender in June of 2017 - reported net profit of 1.7 billion euros in the period April to June. Analysts had expected net profit to come in at 1.65 billion euros, according to a Reuters poll.

(Reporting By Jesús Aguado; Edited by Paul Day)