Standard & Poor's (S&P) Ratings Services said yesterday that its rating on Bharti Airtel (BBB-/Stable/-) is unaffected by the company's plan to sell its operations in Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone in Africa. The plan reflects Bharti's deleveraging measures and should help marginally reduce the company's leverage.

Nevertheless, Bharti's financial ratios will remain in line with our expectations for the rating.

S&P estimates that Bharti will receive about USD 900 million in sale proceeds  when the sale is completed in fiscal 2017.

S&P expects the sale to help raise the company's ratio of funds from operations to debt by 100 basis points to about 25% in fiscal 2017. This is assuming Bharti undertakes USD1 billion each of additional deleveraging measures and spectrum purchases by March 2017.

''Our view is also based on our expectation that the entry of Reliance Jio in India's telecom market over the next three months won't significantly erode Bharti's competitive position or profitability,'' it said.

Shares of the company gained Rs 0.3, or 0.1%, to settle at Rs 309. The total volume of shares traded was 493,917 at the BSE (Thursday).