CIT plan

CIT Group’s board approved a restructuring plan last night, clearing the way for the commercial lender to launch a large debt exchange offer or to file a prepackaged bankruptcy if that failed, a source said.

AIG pay

Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s special master on compensation, is expected to formally approve an annual pay package worth about $10.5 million for AIG CEO Robert Benmosche, sources said. It would be the Treasury Department’s first official compensation decision for the highest-paid employees at firms that received the most government aid.

Apollo get

Apollo Management LP, the buyout firm run by Leon Black, hired as senior adviser Adam Applegarth, the former CEO of failed UK bank Northern Rock, who quit in 2007 after his firm was hit by the first run on a bank since 1866.

News service

The Washington Post and Bloomberg News are teaming up to form a new news service to distribute their political and financial coverage.

IRSnitches

The number of Americans turning in neighbors, clients and employers to the IRS to collect a reward quadrupled last year to 476, with more than onetenth of the cases alleging tax cheating in excess of $100 million, the agency said. Whistle blowers last year provided the identities of 1,246 taxpayers accused of owing at least $2 million each, the IRS said.