After months of secretive talks between "Starburst" and "Saturn" - codenames for Japanese telecoms firm Softbank and its U.S. target Sprint - fears that media leaks could scuttle Japan's biggest overseas takeover pushed negotiators into overdrive."All the dealmakers were in New York in the last two weeks," said a U.S. source familiar with the talks, which climaxed with Monday's announcement that Softbank Corp would pay $20 billion for control of Sprint Nextel Corp, giving the Japanese firm's billionaire CEO Masayoshi Son entry into the U.S. market and Sprint, the No.3 U.S. carrier, much needed cash."You get to a point where you're close enough to getting a deal done and we were really worried about leaks in the press, so we wanted to have the status of the deal ahead of the status of the leaks," said the source, one of several in New York and Tokyo interviewed by Reuters for this article.Son, founder and one-fifth owner of the Japanese carrier, took the first concrete step towards the mega-deal when he met Sprint CEO Dan Hesse on a trip to California in late June, though brokers seem to have been shopping the U.S. firm for longer. Japan's No.2 carrier KDDI Corp said on Wednesday it was approached a year or so ago about buying Sprint, but declined to take part in talks.
Sprint Nextel Corporation (Sprint) is a holding company, with its operations primarily conducted by its subsidiaries. Shares of S traded higher by 0.7% or $0.04/share to $5.73. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $2.10 and as high as $6.04. On average, 85122704 shares of S exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 94890488.
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