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Cook & Boardman Acquires Mullins Building Products, Inc.

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Company continues nationwide total opening solutions expansion

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C., Oct. 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ —  The Cook & Boardman Group LLC (“Cook & Boardman” or “C&B”), the nation’s premier provider of fully integrated access and security solutions, has announced the acquisition of Mullins Building Products, Inc. (“Mullins”) headquartered in Birmingham, AL with other locations in Decatur and Montgomery. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in 1964, Mullins is a traditional commercial door and hardware material supplier and installer, proudly serving customers throughout Alabama.

“We are thrilled to welcome Mullins to the Cook & Boardman family. Their 60+ year history is a testament to the power of relationships and their strong reputation. In an industry built on trust and collaboration, Jeff and Susan have continued the legacy of excellent customer service and strong employee support originally established by their father. We are looking forward to working with Jeff, Susan, and the rest of their team to achieve even greater success in the future,” said David Eisner, Chief Executive Officer of C&B.

“We are thrilled to enter this new chapter with C&B. The acquisition represents not just a continuation of our legacy, but an exciting opportunity to grow and innovate together. Our mission has always been about offering exceptional tangible value to our customer markets, and this mission is significantly enhanced with our relationship with C&B,” said Jeff Mullins and Susan Mullins Sellers, General Manager and Accounting Manager, respectively, of Mullins.

The company will continue to operate under the Mullins Building Products name and customer contacts will remain unchanged as a result of the acquisition.

Platinum Equity acquired a majority interest in Cook & Boardman in 2023. Littlejohn & Co., LLC remains a significant minority shareholder. Mullins represents C&B’s ninth acquisition under Platinum Equity’s ownership.

K&L Gates LLP served as legal advisor to Cook and Boardman.

About Cook & Boardman Group

Founded in 1955, the Cook & Boardman Group is a family of companies that together represent the nation’s premier provider of fully integrated access and security solutions. Through leveraging the entire Cook & Boardman network, the Company is able to seamlessly provide customers with a broad product and service offering spanning commercial doors, frames & hardware (Division 8), electronic access control equipment and specialty (Division 10) products. C&B also provides full systems integration services including physical security, access control, wireless networking, low voltage cabling, audio/visual and managed information technology products (Division 27 & 28).

The nationwide footprint includes over 80 locations in addition to an online customer shopping portal available on the main website and via eProcurement integrations. Our teams have extensive experience serving the non-residential and commercial properties including healthcare, hospitality, K-12 school, higher education institutions, federal/government properties, industrial/warehouse facilities, multi-family/mixed use properties. Learn more at www.cookandboardman.com.

About Platinum Equity

Founded in 1995 by Tom Gores, Platinum Equity is a global investment firm with approximately $47 billion of assets under management and a portfolio of approximately 50 operating companies that serve customers around the world. Platinum Equity specializes in mergers, acquisitions and operations – a trademarked strategy it calls M&A&O® – acquiring and operating companies in a broad range of business markets, including manufacturing, distribution, transportation and logistics, equipment rental, metals services, media and entertainment, technology, telecommunications and other industries. Over the past 28 years Platinum Equity has completed more than 450 acquisitions.

About Littlejohn & Co., LLC:

Littlejohn & Co. is a Greenwich, Connecticut-based investment firm focused on private equity and debt investments primarily in growing middle-market industrial and services companies that can benefit from Littlejohn’s 25+ years of operational and sector expertise. With approximately $8 billion in regulatory assets under management, the firm seeks to build sustainable success for its portfolio companies through a disciplined approach to engineering change. For more information about Littlejohn, visit www.littlejohnllc.com.

The Cook & Boardman Group

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stc group unveils its vision for AI-native networks at Network X 2026

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — stc group, Saudi Arabia’s leading digital enabler, has released its AI Native Core Network White Paper during Network X 2026 outlining how it plans to evolve towards an AI-native telecom network by 2030. The paper explains how the group aims to embed AI directly into its network’s design and operations to support emerging digital services and improve reliability.

stc group continues to advance its network capabilities to support AI-driven applications and changing connectivity needs. The group is upgrading its core network, which manages user connections and delivers communications services. By integrating AI deeply into this infrastructure, stc group aims to help the network adapt to changing service requirements and resolve issues with less manual intervention.

The white paper highlights how advances in AI and 5G-Advanced, the next stage of 5G, are increasing network complexity. Services such as AI-enabled calling and immersive communications require faster, more responsive connectivity. AI agents, software systems that carry out tasks on users’ behalf, also need networks to coordinate communications and computing resources around each task.

To address these requirements, the paper sets out stc’s approach spanning AI-native infrastructure, network functions and autonomous operations. It details how the group plans to develop the infrastructure needed to run AI, embed intelligence within network functions and automate more operations. These capabilities would help the network allocate resources more efficiently and recover from faults faster, while allowing engineers to focus on service improvement and oversight.

The release of this whitepaper marks an important milestone in stc group’s network evolution, building a scalable foundation for future AI services, AI agents, intelligent interaction scenarios, and next-generation 5G-A and 6G applications. Building on its existing investments, the group aims to improve network reliability, support the next generation of digital services and accelerate the industry’s transition from Cloud Native to AI Native networks.

About stc group: 

stc group is a digital enabler, offering advanced solutions and driving a role in the digitalization process. The group provides a comprehensive suite of services encompassing digital infrastructure, cloud computing, cybersecurity, Internet of Things (IoT), digital payments, digital media, and digital entertainment. The group comprises 13 subsidiaries across The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe. 

To know more about stc group: Click here  

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Shoplazza Collaborates with TikTok to Bring Product Discovery Closer to Purchase

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The collaboration supports TikTok’s new agentic commerce experiences, with a focus on helping merchants turn customer interest into sales.

TORONTO, Oct. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Shoplazza, an AI-native commerce operating system, recently announced it is working with TikTok to support new agentic commerce shopping experiences. The collaboration reflects a shared focus on shortening the path from product discovery to purchase and helping merchants make more of the demand their content and advertising generate.

TikTok introduced Buy Direct and Shopping Assistant on October 5, naming Shoplazza among its commerce and payment partners. Buy Direct lets consumers buy directly from brands within TikTok, without being redirected to an external storefront. It uses Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) to connect with merchant systems, while brands remain the Merchant of Record.

Shopping Assistant answers product questions using merchant-supplied information on product pages within TikTok’s in-app browser. Shoppers can get the details they need before proceeding to checkout on the merchant’s website within the same browser.

For merchants, a shorter purchase journey can help protect the value of their customer acquisition spending. Redirects and repeated forms add friction just as a shopper is ready to buy. Losing that purchase means losing potential revenue after already paying to attract the customer.

“As platforms automate more decisions, performance increasingly depends on how well data, creative and checkout work together,” said Chao Xu, Director at Shoplazza. “TikTok’s new shopping experiences make it easier to buy while interest is fresh, helping merchants turn that interest into revenue and use each transaction to inform smarter marketing decisions.”

Shoplazza sees these developments as part of a broader convergence between advertising platforms and commerce infrastructure. From transaction data sharing and Instant Pages to Buy Direct, the opportunity is to help algorithms understand completed purchases more accurately while making it easier for shoppers to follow through.

The collaboration builds on an established relationship. Shoplazza’s merchant admin already supports catalog syncing, TikTok Pixel and Events API setup. In May, it was the sole winner of the TikTok Partner Innovation Award for Innovation in Marketing Technology – Commerce. In July, it joined the first group of TikTok for Business Agentic Hub partners, introducing AI Skills that connect store data and business insights with TikTok’s advertising intelligence.

About Shoplazza

Shoplazza is a global AI-native commerce operating system that enables brands to build, launch, and scale their online businesses. Built on an AI agent-native framework, Shoplazza integrates storefronts, marketing, payments, and operational workflows into a unified system designed to support scalable, long-term growth across global markets. Learn more at https://www.shoplazza.com/.

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Lexsoft Systems Partners With Clio to Bring Clio’s Legal AI Platform to Law Firms and Legal Departments Across EMEA

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Lexsoft will deliver Clio products, including Clio Work and Clio Manage, and integrate them into the systems its clients already use

LONDON and MADRID, Oct. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Lexsoft Systems, a provider of IT and business process solutions, today announced a strategic partnership with Clio, the global leader in legal AI. Through this EMEA-wide partnership, Lexsoft will deliver Clio’s platform to law firms and corporate legal departments, and integrate it with the other business-critical systems those clients run.

This agreement strengthens Lexsoft’s position as an independent legal solutions provider, and reinforces its growing presence in the UK and across Europe. It also supports the continued expansion of its carefully selected product portfolio of best-practice, global market-leading legal systems. 

Clio brings together the context of a firm’s work with trusted legal intelligence. Clio Work can draw on the matters, clients, documents, and other information already in Clio Manage, then ground that work in Clio’s global library of more than 1 billion legal documents to support research, analysis, and drafting. For Lexsoft’s global clients, that means AI designed for legal work that understands both the firm and the law.

“A practice management system is the originating point for most major legal processes — from document management and time recording through to security measures such as ethical walls,” says Carlos García-Egocheaga, CEO of Lexsoft Systems. “Until now, we’ve been reluctant to commit to a single partner, despite a wide choice of technologically robust and functionality-rich practice management systems on the market. But with the Clio platform, we’re offering customers more than practice management. Clio Manage takes practice management to a new level, from user experience to advanced functionality. Clio Work, Clio’s legal AI workspace, helps lawyers research, strategise and draft alongside Clio’s global library of legal documents. By integrating these capabilities into customers’ existing systems, we can deliver AI that works the way they do. We’re excited about the value this partnership enables us to deliver to our customers, large and small.”

The partnership lets Lexsoft build tailored environments around Clio, with deep integrations into the other systems its clients run. It helps firms across EMEA move beyond adoption of AI tools to deeper integration and a more fundamental transformation of how legal work gets done.

“Firms across Europe want AI in their daily work, and it only earns its place when it understands the context behind that work,” says Lisa Del Real, Vice President, Channel Partnerships at Clio. “Lexsoft has built its business on connecting the systems law firms and legal departments depend on. Through this partnership, Lexsoft’s clients can run Clio Manage and Clio Work on one shared foundation, so the context of each matter carries from the business of the firm into the legal work itself. They also get an implementation team that already knows how they work.”

Lexsoft is offering Clio’s products to law firms and corporate legal departments in EMEA immediately.

About Lexsoft Systems

Lexsoft provides IT and business process solutions to the legal sector across Europe, the United States, and Latin America. ISO 27017 and ISO 27001 certified, the company assists law firms and corporate legal departments (CLD) to improve their document management, knowledge management, practice management, and CRM processes, to facilitate business efficiency, improve productivity, and reduce risk. Lexsoft T3 is a proven knowledge management solution, offering one of the most comprehensive workflows for this business function. For more information, visit: www.lexsoft.com.

About Clio

Clio is the global leader in legal AI, empowering legal professionals and law firms of every size to work smarter, faster, and more securely. Purpose-built for the legal industry, Clio’s Intelligent Legal Work Platform streamlines workflows, improves decision-making, and combines powerful technology with industry-leading security. Trusted by hundreds of thousands of legal professionals in more than 130 countries, and approved by over 100 bar associations and law societies worldwide, Clio sets the standard for innovation and client success across the legal profession. Backed by world-class investors and a mission to transform the legal experience for all, Clio is defining the future of legal work through AI. Learn more at www.clio.com.

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