The Chinese general public knew little about the term VIE (variable interest entities) before the transfer of ownership of the online payments platform Alipay.

Financial website imeigu.com made a simple example of the term by comparing it to house purchasing. "Let's suppose you are a non-Beijinger who doesn't meet the requirements of buying a local house. Then it occurs to you that you may sign a 50-year lease agreement with a potential house seller, pay the rent all at once and then just move in. This is what we call VIE."

The VIE structure, which has been used by many Chinese Internet companies including Sina, Baidu, Sohu and Netease, allows foreign investors in China to gain a degree of control over companies they are not allowed to own directly.

The VIE structure has attracted public attention ever since a dispute erupted last May between Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and American tech giant Yahoo!, which holds a minority stake in Alibaba through a VIE. Under the VIE structure, Alibaba transferred its successful online payment business Alipay to a company wholly-owned by its CEO Ma Yun in order to comply with new Chinese regulations that bars foreign investment in domestic online payment companies. The dispute raised concerns among investors about the potential risks of the VIE structure.

在支付寶股權(quán)轉(zhuǎn)移之前，中國普通大眾對(duì)于可變利益實(shí)體（VIE）這個(gè)詞是完全陌生的。

財(cái)經(jīng)網(wǎng)站i美股舉了一個(gè)簡單的例子，將VIE比作買房子：假設(shè)你是非北京戶口，也不滿足在京買房條件。后來你想出了一個(gè)辦法，和賣家簽訂了一份50年的出租協(xié)議，租金一次性給清，然后你搬進(jìn)去住了，這就是所謂的VIE。

在中國，某些行業(yè)的公司是“外資禁入”的。而通過VIE結(jié)構(gòu)，境外投資人就可以擁有這些公司一定程度的實(shí)際控制權(quán)。多家中國互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司都應(yīng)用了VIE結(jié)構(gòu)，新浪、百度、搜狐、網(wǎng)易等都在其中。

去年的支付寶風(fēng)波引發(fā)了大眾對(duì)于VIE結(jié)構(gòu)的關(guān)注。2011年5月，為了符合網(wǎng)上支付機(jī)構(gòu)限制外資進(jìn)入的新規(guī)定，中國電子商務(wù)巨頭阿里巴巴集團(tuán)將旗下的在線支付公司支付寶的所有權(quán)轉(zhuǎn)移到了一家中國內(nèi)資公司，由阿里巴巴首席執(zhí)行官馬云控股。美國科技巨頭雅虎公司此前通過VIE結(jié)構(gòu)持有阿里巴巴的少數(shù)股權(quán)，因此支付寶的股權(quán)轉(zhuǎn)移引起了阿里巴巴與雅虎之間的糾紛，同時(shí)也引發(fā)了投資人對(duì)于投資VIE結(jié)構(gòu)企業(yè)潛在風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的擔(dān)憂。