[Photo: by Paul Warchol / Officeshapshots.com]

While researching yesterday's story about Lek Securities being charged with aiding and abetting securities manipulation [click on Financialish, 3/28/17], we came across photographs of Lek Securities' home office - located on the 52nd floor of One Liberty Plaza, in the Wall Street District of lower Manhattan. To say it's "to die for" would be an understatement. It exudes wealth and refined luxury. But first, something about the firm.

Lek Securities is a self-described ... independent broker-dealer and technology firm that provides direct access to equities, options, fixed income, foreign exchange and futures markets through ROX, its sophisticated electronic order management system with instant routing to exchanges, ECNs, market makers and MTFs (multilateral trading facilities) world-wide. The firm started out in 1990 as a proprietary trading firm, making option markets on the American Stock Exchange. Lek Securities no longer engages in prop trding or market making. It's mission statement is to "provide the very best execution and clearing services for our customers."

OfficeSnapShots.com, ...  which provides a photo montage of Lek's home offices, notes that Huntsman Architectural Group designed the office space in 2013. Samuel Lek, the firm’s founder and CEO, asked Huntsman to design the interiors in a contemporary style, in keeping with the modern skyscraper that houses the company. Selections of Mr. Lek’s contemporary art collection play a key role in the spaces.

The core of the office is the 3,000-square-foot trading workspace, where most of the 45 employees spend the majority of their day. Envisioned as a “living room,” the design emphasizes functionality. On one wall hangs one of graffiti artist Maximillian Wiedemann’s spray-painted Vogue covers, which Lek noticed hanging at the Bagatelle restaurant in the Meatpacking District - it turned out that the artist was having dinner there that night, and Lek bought it on the spot. A 500-square-foot data center supports the company’s proprietary electronic trading platform with multiple servers. Private offices feature Infinium metal and glass office fronts.

[Click link below for the photo spread and to continue reading.]