Variable interest entity (VIE) is a term used by the United States Financial Accounting Standards Board in FIN 46 to refer to an entity (the investee) in which the investor holds a controlling interest that is not based on the majority of voting rights. It is closely related to the concept of a special purpose entity. The importance of identifying a VIE is that a company needs to consolidate such entities if it is the primary beneficiary of the VIE.
Note: The guidance in FIN 46 and FIN 46R was subsequently revised when FASB issued Statement 167.
Read more about Variable Interest Entity: Criteria
Famous quotes containing the words variable, interest and/or entity:
“There is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady’s head-dress.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“In the middle years of childhood, it is more important to keep alive and glowing the interest in finding out and to support this interest with skills and techniques related to the process of finding out than to specify any particular piece of subject matter as inviolate.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)
“What is this world of ours? A complex entity subject to sudden changes which all indicate a tendency to destruction; a swift succession of beings which follow one another, assert themselves and disappear; a fleeting symmetry; a momentary order.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)