COMMENT | A Singapore government-owned company may have had a stake of over 70 percent in U Mobile when it announced on Dec 4 its divestment of a “majority” stake (over 50 percent) in the company which obtained the second 5G licence from Malaysian authorities.

Two other things are very clear from the divestment of a stake in U Mobile by a Singapore government company. The first is the paucity of information on the deal, of which the main one is that no price details are given.

The second is the puzzling seeming absence of conditions on U Mobile’s major shareholders by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) in awarding the second 5G spectrum to U Mobile in November. Why award a 5G spectrum to a company whose shareholdings are in a state of flux?