CIT Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek plans to retire at the end of the year, but the company could well be bankrupt before it concludes its search for a replacement.

Dan Wilchins and Paritosh Bansal report that bondholders are showing little interest in exchanging their debt for equity in the troubled lender to small- and medium-sized businesses. Earlier this month it said it was looking for investors to approve a large debt exchange that would reduce its borrowings, or to approve a prepackaged bankruptcy. CIT listed $71 billion of assets on its balance sheet as of the end of June.

Peek, formerly an executive at Merrill Lynch, has led CIT since 2003. He has been widely criticized for being slow to recognize the extent to which the credit crunch would stress the company’s business model by lifting its borrowing costs. If a white knight is anywhere in sight, he better have something more convincing to sell bondholders than green shoots and the promise of a better tomorrow, as about $3 billion of debt comes due in the fourth quarter.

American International Group has agreed to sell it’s Taiwan life insurance unit for $2.15 billion, a key step in its effort to raise cash after a U.S. government bailout last year saved the company from collapse, Reuters reports.

CIT Group Inc is seeing little interest from bondholders in a debt exchange offer aimed at repairing its fragile balance sheet, making bankruptcy increasingly likely, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The following other corporate finance-related stories were reported by media on Tuesday:

PC maker Dell Inc is eyeing more acquisitions as part of a turnaround plan and is developing merger expertise, Chief Executive Michael Dell told Bloomberg in an interview.

Bank of America Corp has agreed to hand over to investigators documents describing the legal advice it received related to its purchase of Merrill Lynch, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.

Japan Airlines Corp plans to seek a 250 billion yen ($2.8 billion) debt waiver as part of a new turnaround plan, Kyodo news agency reported on Tuesday.