Fearing leaks, Japan's Softbank sprinted to close U.S. deal

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 buyout 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. "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.