Bruce R. Bent, chairman and cofounder of the Reserve Funds, said he and others were willing to "try anything" the day after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s bankruptcy caused a run on the $62.5 billion money-market fund.

Bent testified on the second day of a trial in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's case claiming he and his son Bruce Bent II defrauded investors by misleading them about the fund's safety in the two days following Lehman's failure.

Under questioning by SEC lawyer Nancy Brown, Bent said today his firm was exploring a reverse repurchase transaction to raise cash on Sept. 15, 2008, the day after Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection, in spite of a limitation against borrowing more than 5 percent of the fund's assets.

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