Santander chairman buys 3.61 million euros of bank shares as price falls

MADRID (Reuters) - The chairman of Spain's Banco Santander SA <SAN.MC>, Ana Botin, has bought one million shares in the bank, according to a regulatory filing published Thursday, a day after the group reported a sharp drop in third-quarter earnings.

Shares in the Spanish lender have fallen by almost 10% since Wednesday, when the group posted a 75% drop in third-quarter net profit, largely the result of a 1.6 billion euro charge related to the bank's UK operations.

Taking into account a dividend payment of 0.10 euros per share, the decline over the past two sessions is 7%.

The transaction brings Botin's stake in the bank up to 0.142% from 0.139%, according to the filing.

One-off costs in Britain and continued pressure on financial margins in Spain offset a solid performance in Brazil, Santander's biggest market.

However, shares in other banks also dropped on Wednesday amid a broad-based sell off in financial stocks.

(Reporting by Nathan Allen, editing by Andrei Khalip and Chizu Nomiyama)