The feud between Sony Entertainment Television (SET) and two of its minority stakeholders, who hold a combined 31.67 per cent stake, is finally ending.

Both parties have decided to shake hands over paying additional capital demanded by Sony to repay a loan taken to finance its bid for the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

Both Sony and its two minority shareholders, Atlas Equifin Pvt Ltd and Grandway Global Holdings Ltd, informed the Bombay High Court during a hearing on March 5 that they had come to a consensus under which the two will pay their share of the additional capital that Sony had demanded by April 6. The two will pay $12.66 million (approximately Rs 50 crore).

Following this submission, the court disposed of the petition filed by the minority stakeholders against SET.

The minority stakeholders filed the petition in February 2008 after the company demanded additional capital of $40 million (Rs 160 crore) from all shareholders. Sony had stunned everybody in 2003 by paying $250 million (Rs 1,000 crore) to bag the satellite rights for telecasting two World Cup tournaments.

The petitioners have been asking Sony to go in for an initial public offer to raise the funds required for the company's operations and expansion plans. But Sony had been stonewalling these requests.

The petitioners had said that the capital call was a breach of the agreements signed between Sony and them in March and December 2005.

In March, the two parties signed an agreement that as a result of the acquisition of SAB TV, the petitioners would not be required to make any capital contribution.

Any shortfall would be funded by loans only. A similar agreement was signed in December 2005 when PIX TV was launched.

When contacted, Atlas Equifin Director Raman Maroo declined to comment. Kunal Dasgupta, CEO of SET India, could not be reached for comment.

Recently, the SET India-World Sports consortium won the telecast rights of the Indian Premier League, the twenty20 cricket tournament for $1.026 billion (around Rs 4,000 crore), which includes $108 million (Rs 432 crore) for compulsory promotional spends, for 10 years.