New York - Urgent moves were afoot Friday to sell embattled Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, the fourth-biggest US investment bank which this week reported record losses, media reports said.

Lehman was reported to be urgently shopping around for a possible takeover, while there were reports that the government had agreed to subsidize any takeover of the bank, one of many still reeling from the ongoing credit crisis in the United States.

The bank posted its largest-ever quarterly loss of 3.9 billion dollars on Wednesday. Lehman's own shares tumbled more than 40 per cent in Thursday's trading.

Bank of America and the British bank Barclays were among potential buyers, according to Wall Street Journal Online. A consortium iof buyers was also possible, with those involved sharing Lehman assets.

The reports agreed that none of the potential buyers was prepared to go ahead with any risky purchase move unless there was state support to stave off the worst of the enormous losses Lehman incurred.