Robert H. Benmosche is making American International Group more aerodynamic — at a price.

The insurance company has agreed to sell its aircraft leasing business to a Chinese-led group for a valuation of $5.3 billion. A.I.G.’s own shareholders will probably forgive Mr. Benmosche, the A.I.G. chief executive, for the mean headline number and the lack of a clean exit, and focus on the fact that the company is a step closer to independence from its government shareholder.

The asset manager New China Trust and its co-investors will pay $4.2 billion for an 80.1 percent stake in the International Lease Finance Corporation, with the option to buy a further 9.9 percent later. While A.I.G. gets stuck with the rest for the time being, it’s a larger lump sum than the group would have been able to pocket had it followed the alternative route of a public listing. Moreover, this is one Chinese purchase that American authorities can presumably be relied on not to block.

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That’s just as well, because the price looks low. The consortium values I.L.F.C. at just two-thirds of its accounting book value at the end of September. By contrast Royal Bank of Scotland — another forced seller with an impatient government shareholder — sold its leasing business at just over book value to Sumitomo Mitsui in January. Smaller leasing companies like Air Lease Corp and AerCap trade 70 to 100 percent of book. Worse, A.I.G. will take a $1.8 billion loss from some unused tax credits.

Jettisoning the business makes sense, however. The leasing business brought A.I.G. a pretax return on assets of just 1.5 percent on average over the last four quarters — even stripping out its frequent write-downs on past-their-prime planes. AerCap, meanwhile, returned more than 2 percent in the first half, not including one-off charges.

But the biggest appeal for A.I.G. is that the cash opens up new options. It could use the proceeds to reduce its $16 billion of financial debt outstanding at the end of the third quarter. More significantly, the amount it will receive initially is around half the value of the Treasury Department’s remaining stake in A.I.G. — now the last vestige of its 2008 bailout.

Even if that stake is not currently for sale, it can’t be long before Mr. Benmosche regains his wings.

John Foley is Reuters Breakingviews China Editor. For more independent commentary and analysis, visit breakingviews.com.