CIT Group Inc. and investor Carl Icahn dueled over the best way to salvage the 101-year-old lender, with the company offering a debt exchange that the billionaire says “would put our assets at peril.”

General unsecured claims may fetch 6 cents to 37 cents on the dollar in a “free-fall bankruptcy,” Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek said on a Webcast.

Icahn, who has said he’s the largest holder of CIT debt, favors managing existing assets in a so-called runoff plan, a scenario in which his holdings are worth 80 percent to 85 percent of face value, he said in a statement yesterday.