Shares in state-owned China Unicom, the country’s second-largest telecom carrier, initially soared more than 11 per cent on the back of the company’s announcement last week that it plans to sell $12bn in equity to outside investors in the country’s largest privatisation deal in at least a decade.

But some investors and analysts doubt that the private group investment will fundamentally alter Unicom’s character as a state-controlled actor that must balance profit-seeking against support for government policy. Unicom’s Hong Kong-traded shares eventually closed up 3.5 per cent on Monday.

Unicom said last week it would sell $11.7bn in shares worth 35 per cent of its Shanghai-listed unit to a group of state and private investors, including tech giants Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and JD.com.