Akademik

n.

The process of setting up a portion of a corporation as a separate business and selling some of its shares in an initial public offering. (Also: the business so formed.)

"In a pure spinoff, a parent company distributes 100 percent of its ownership interest in a subsidiary company to its existing shareholders in the form of a dividend.

In a partial spinoff, or carve-out, the parent company sells less than 20 percent of its ownership interest in the subsidiary company to the public."

— Andrew Leckey, "Spinoffs May Be Undervalued Opportunities," Chicago Tribune, March 13, 1999

"Carve-out" is also a term used in the U.S. health insurance industry. It refers to a service (such as mental health or vision care) that has been removed from an employer's health benefits plan and then contracted out to a separate health care provider that specializes in that service:

"Managed care also spawned a special mini-sector of companies devoted solely to mental health and substance abuse treatment. The leader of these behavioral 'carve-out companies' is based in Atlanta: Magellan Health Services."

— Andy Miller, "Managed care and mental health," The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, August 30, 1998