$$$ London bankers can dress for more than success [Dealbook]

$$$ GM files for landmark IPO to repay bailout money [Reuters]

$$$ Why success is so much harder for hedge funds now [cnbc]

$$$ AIG sets stage for first bond sale since bailout [WSJ]

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Bobby Benmosche, celebrating the fact that he’s survived an entire year to the day at AIG, an achievement no one saw coming. [WSJ]

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It pales in comparison to the insurer’s biggest news of the summer but exciting nonetheless.

“We have commenced discussions with the U.S. government on the process and terms of a complete government exit,” Benmosche told employees today in a memo. “Depending of course on market conditions, which could remain volatile, we expect to make meaningful progress in 2010 on repaying the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and over time fully repaying all of our obligations to taxpayers.”

AIG in Talks for `Complete Government Exit,’ CEO Says [Bloomberg]

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“[Cassano] even went so far as to claim that he might have been able to help minimize the government’s bailout of AIG. Part of the money spent to save the company was funneled to more than a dozen banks that had taken out insurance contracts against AIG defaulting on its debt. “I think I would have negotiated a much better deal for taxpayers,” said Cassano, who left the company in March 2008 after the insurer reported more than $11 billion in losses within his division for the fourth quarter of 2007.” [CNN Money]

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Robert Benmosche has a vineyard in Croatia take care of and the finest bathroom fixtures money can buy. And it would be nice to tend to his grapes and enjoy some time on the can without having to worry about the company he’s been tasked with turning around, and the government breathing down his neck. He’s threatened to leave before and if he did now, people probably woudln’t give him too much shit, since it’s what every AIG CEO does anyway. Tradition and whatnot. But he’s promised his little workers that despite the fact that he honestly cannot take Ken Feinberg being such a god damn nag, and he’d be a lot happier just taking off, Daddy’s no deadbeat. Today he reaffirmed that commitment.

Benmosche will “be around for a year or two more, and then after that the question would be working with the board on how best to deal with succession,” he said. “We are doing that now, as well as in the future.”

Does he have a giant wall-sized calendar with a star marking his last day in 2011? Is the best part of his day crossing it off with an X, bringing him closer and closer to freedom? Does he keep a packed suitcase in the back of his trunk and staff a first year with keeping the motor running during business hours? You betcha. But for now he’s sticking it out.

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Today the Journal has a story examining the effects of absentee CEOs, particularly those running some of our nation’s shittiest bailed out companies. Though there is the argument that these firms will never learn to stand on their own feet unless we stop coddling them, some feel the absence of daddy chief execs hurts employee morale, and so on and so forth. What does AIG commander-in-chief Robert Benmosche have to say about that? Shove it up your ass. As previously stated by Bobby himself, he can do just as good a job remotely in Croatia, where he has grapes to tend to and the finest bathrooms money can buy to take advantage of as he can in lower Manhattan. Also? He’ll be damned if he’s gonna fork over extra money to the government when Ken Feinberg is already raping his employees blind.

If Mr. Benmosche is physically present in New York for more than 183 days during a year, his world-wide income would be subject to New York taxes. Mr. Benmosche has the highest pay package—valued at up to $10.5 million annually—among bailed-out U.S. companies that fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. pay czar…The 65-year-old remains a resident of Florida, a state that doesn’t impose personal income tax, and he has no intention of changing his residency, according to a person familiar with his thinking.

You don’t like that? He’s got a teabag with your name on it.

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