Lehman Brothers was in talks for a deal to sell parts of the company to Barclays, the UK bank, with the potential for an agreement to be reached as early as today, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Citing unnamed people briefed on the discussions, the WSJ said Lehman executives were at the company's

New York headquarters trying to create a plan that would preserve many jobs and operations of Lehman, whose holding company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman is among several private equity houses that are in the running to acquire Lehman’s asset management unit, media reports said.

A Lehman representative declined to comment on the WSJ article. A

US representative for Barclays was not immediately available for comment.

The deal under discussion would fold Lehman's core business - underwriting stocks and bonds, providing merger advice, and securities trading - into Barclays,

UK's third-largest bank, according to the WSJ.

But the deal was not certain and questions remained such as the price Barclays might pay and what would become of Lehman's toxic mortgage-security and real estate assets, the report said.