Steven Udvar-Hazy, the founder and chief executive of aircraft-leasing company International Lease Finance Corp. — who tried to extricate the firm from its struggling parent, American International Group Inc. — is expected to leave the company as soon as this week, people familiar with the matter said told the Wall Street Journal.

Udvar-Hazy was recently in talks to purchase about $4 billion in planes from the leasing firm, which had total assets of $46 billion as of September 2009. That plan, which had backing from private-equity firms Greenbriar Equity Group LLC and Onex Partners, was recently rejected, according to people familiar with the situation.

Udvar-Hazy co-founded ILFC in 1973 with two other individuals and grew it into one of the two largest aircraft leasing firms in the world, with nearly 1,000 Boeing and Airbus aircraft. He was succeeded last month as chairman of ILFC by Douglas Steenland, an AIG board member and the former president and CEO of Northwest Airlines.

• Read the full Wall Street Journal story.