what is minority interest

What Does Minority Interest Mean?
1. A significant but non-controlling ownership of less than 50% of a company's voting shares by either an investor or another company.

2. A non-current liability that can be found on a parent company's balance sheet that represents the proportion of its subsidiaries owned by minority shareholders.

 for example

If ABC Corp. owns 90% of XYZ inc, which is a $100 million company, on ABC Corp.'s balance sheet, there would be a $10 million liability in minority interest account to represent the 10% of XYZ Inc. that ABC Corp does not own.

as per AS-21 -- 

     inority interest is that part of the net results of operations and of the net assets of a subsidiary attributable to interests which are not owned, directly or indirectly-through subsidiary(ies), by the parent.