1. A situation in which a parent company sells a minority share of a child company, usually in an IPO, while retaining the rest. The child company will have its own board of directors and financial statements, but will benefit from the parent company's resources and strategic support. Usually, the parent company will eventually sell the rest of the child company in the open market. also called partial spinoff. 2. To separate the value of a property from the value of income that the property generates. For example, if the owner of an oil field sells the rights to the oil for a period of time, the owner is separating the value of the land itself from the value of the oil.