Kidder settled SEC charges that it mingled funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Kidder, Peabody & Co., one of the nation’s largest brokerage firms, settled charges that Kidder misused about $145 million in customer securities as collateral for bank loans and government securities repurchase agreements, the SEC reported. In October of 1985, the SEC accused Kidder, Peabody of pledging a total of about $90 million in customer securities as collateral for certain repurchase agreements that it had made on March 1, 1984, and on five days in April, 1984. In a statement read by Hugh R. Covington, a Kidder, Peabody vice president, the firm said the SEC matter had been resolved satisfactorily but maintained that the issue hung on a technical rule that could have been fought in court.