This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement under which AAM will acquire Tekfor Group for an enterprise value of €125 million "This acquisition leverages the core strengths of AAM with significant synergy potential diversifies our geographic and customer sales mix and increases our electrification product portfolio this purchase fits nicely with our recent tactical M&A approach," said AAM's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer "We are excited to expand our metal forming technologies to serve a broad range of global customers." Tekfor Group is a leading specialist in automotive fasteners and metal formed components for driveline Tekfor generated sales of approximately €285 million in 2021 Subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing requirements the transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022 Tekfor sold its Italian subsidiary in 2020 to Mutares As a leading global Tier 1 Automotive and Mobility Supplier engineers and manufactures Driveline and Metal Forming technologies to support electric Headquartered in Detroit with nearly 80 facilities in 17 countries aam.com Tekfor Group is a leading specialist for high-performance components Products include traditional powertrain and driveline (for both internal combustion and hybrid)  as well as an increasing number of E-mobility components Tekfor Group has eight sites and employs approximately 2,100 staff in Europe and the Americas covering the whole value chain from engineering to manufacturing tekfor.com Media Information Privacy and Security Terms and Conditions Stag Publications Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with Company Number 03530248 The 63-year-old pensioner has been a regular guest at the church-run meeting point since losing her job as a fitter at an electrical factory which went bankrupt in the late 1990s "Without the soup kitchen and state help I'd be lost," she says one of Berlin's poorest districts where one in four people are unemployed and half of all children live in poverty hopes to pawn a family heirloom – a gold watch – to help cover a heating bill "It takes me back to when I used to go with my mother to the Reichstag in the days after the war and people were selling watches and coffee beans on the black market in an attempt to survive," she says "In some ways it feels like Berlin is as poor now as it was then." randomly encountered on opposite ends of Berlin on a freezing day this week are among a growing number of Berliners stuck in a vicious circle of poverty according to a study which shows that citizens of the German capital are more likely to live in poverty than anywhere else in the country A staggering 20% per cent of Berliners are reliant on state support to survive according to research by the Bertelsmann foundation From an economic viewpoint the city is in disarray with a jobless rate of around 17% and a debt mountain expected to total €63.5bn (£55.7bn) this year But the flip side to its troubled situation is the rise of a new and seemingly unstoppable creative class which economic experts say has the potential to make the capital boom Realising early on that Berlin had little choice but to play to its strengths inadvertently coined the phrase "Berlin: arm The line hit a nerve and has become an unofficial slogan which now adorns T-shirts and bags and a level of tolerance and laissez-faire attitude it is hard to find elsewhere has helped to lure a whole generation of creative figures who are helping to shape a new economy now worth an annual €17.5bn (£15.4bn) Nowhere was the creative vibe more evident than at the "Bread and Butter" Berlin fashion show held this week at the now defunct Tempelhof airport which attracted international designers and fashion moguls Louis St Louis, a 36-year-old rock musician, left his native New York for Berlin after a friend tipped him off about its benefits. He formed a successful band called Index which uses the capital as a base from which to tour Europe you can rent a place here for the cost of a storage facility in London," he says sitting in the 8mm Bar he set up in the hip district of Prenzlauer Berg "It's a tolerant city with an incredible creative energy and so relaxed that – unlike New York – you can get away without wearing designer clothes here." Among those contributing to the creative economy are the hundreds of British (who top the list of tourist numbers) and other European clubbers attracted by Berlin's 250 nightclubs They pile off cheap flights for overnight stays in the city which they often spend entirely on the dance floor Entrance and drinks cost a fraction of London prices At the Golden Gate club on the river Spree The musician moved to Berlin as much to get away from the pressures of London as to soak up the charms of what Mayor Wowereit has referred to as a "young the lack of pretension and the simpler way of life," says the Manchester-born DJ and record producer who helped to shape the acid house scene in the 1980s "I love the fact that I have a studio in Tacheles (a former 1930s department store-turned artists' collective in the centre of Berlin) which would be totally impossible elsewhere unless I was a friend of Donald Trump's." one of the attractions of the city is that one can get by on relatively little But she is reluctant to use the phrase "arm "There's nothing sexy about being poor – but if you're going to be poor there are far worst places to be so than Berlin." a body representing the dance and music club scene believes the creative class has to remain sensitive to the "real" Berliners "The long-term challenge for Berlin will be how it balances the needs of its ordinary poor while encouraging its creative elite," he says After the fall of the Berlin wall it was ­predicted that as a gateway to central Europe Berlin would regain its pre-war role as an industrial centre Instead it lost almost 70% of its manufacturing jobs as the generous subsidies paid to both halves of Berlin were largely withdrawn after unification in 1990 A legacy of its past as a divided city is that it still has three opera houses and three universities According to the economics ministry of Berlin's senate the music industry is now Berlin's third biggest economic force