Simba Telecom's planned Singaporean merger deal with M1 has collapsed, after its deadline for completion was not met.

The proposed deal was first announced in August of last year for an enterprise value of S$1.43 billion (US$1.12bn).

Reuters reported last week that Singapore's regulator paused its plans to review the merger due to concerns that Simba had been using ​radio frequency bands that it had not been assigned to provide mobile services.

Australian company Tuas, the parent company of Simba, confirmed in an Australian stock exchange filing this week that its agreement to acquire M1 has been terminated.

M1 is owned by the Singaporean company Keppel. Keppel first invested in M1 in 1994 as one of its founding investors. M1 went private in 2019.

In Tuas' filing, the company said that the agreement collapsed due to "several conditions" not being met.

"The Infocomm Media Development Authority said in a statement that during a review it found that Simba could have been using ​radio frequency bands that it had not been assigned to provide mobile services," said Tuas in its filing.

A merger between Simba and M1 would have seen Singapore's telecoms market shrink from four players to three.

Keppel had looked to sell M1 as part of the company's strategy to focus on its data center strategy. Keppel owns and operates a number of data centers across Europe and Asia via its Keppel DC REIT and Keppel Data Centers units. Its data center portfolio currently totals 35 facilities across Europe and the Asia Pacific, with 650MW of power capacity.

M1 serves around 2 million users in Singapore, providing mobile, fiber, and fixed-line services. The company is the third-largest mobile operator in Singapore, while Simba is the fourth-largest with around 1.2 million customers.