This month the editor of Connexion sent me an article they had come across, in the mainstream French press, about assurance vie and asked me what I thought. Given that many people living in France have an assurance vie, including expatriates, we agreed it as an...
Articles by: Robert Kent
Robert Kent
Director
Robert was an original founder of Kentingtons and has been working in tax and wealth management for over 30 years.
Robert was as a senior adviser for HSBC, in London, and ended up specialising solely on giving international advice to people from all over the world.
He then went on to work for Towry Law’s international division managing Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, working out of both the Windsor office and Brussels. Robert always wanted to expand into France, however, this was resisted by management who felt France was too complex.
Robert was then headhunted by a firm with an office in Brussels and was delighted to leave the UK to have his first experience living life as an expat. This is where he met his wife, Christine, who is a also a director of Kentingtons. It was whilst in Brussels, that Robert’s interest in France developed further, as many people who worked in Brussels chose to retire there and became the specialist in all matters French.
Christine being half French and half Belgian, was only too happy when Robert took up a new position on the French Riviera as south east regional manager for Siddalls, so finally achieving the dream of moving to France. Christine became pregnant with their first child and this coincided with a colleague leaving and Robert having to cover two regions. Unable to cope with the extra travel and workload, he parted ways with them and set up Kentingtons.
Kentingtons is a French based company, set up as Conseil en gestion de Patrimoine and Robert was one of the first advisers in France become certifié (certified but akin to chartered in the UK) and as such is able to offer advice on both fiscal and civil law, where related to financial planning, as well as offering wealth management counsel and management as Conseil en Investissement Financier.
Robert, lives with his wife Christine and their son Alex in sunny Provence. When not working Robert enjoys hiking, swimming and joys French fine wine and cuisine.
Articles by Kentingtons
It Is Hard to be an Investor
When it comes to your money these days, it is hard to know what to do. Interest rates are 0.10% in the UK and 0.0% in the rest of Europe. This has led many people to add more of their money to the stock market, or even invest this way where previously not considered....
4 French Tax Myths and Misconceptions Explained
Being the month of April (poisson d’avril / April fool) the Connexion have asked me if I could write about french tax myths and misconceptions. Mmm… I might need a bit more than half a page for that, so failing the Connexion granting me 50 pages to write about this, I...
Counter the Cost of Investing on You AND the Planet
When it comes to the financial world, you will find one acronym after another and be expected to understand what is going on. A company I used to work for, used to talk about ‘Three Letter Abbreviations ‘or TLA’s; itself a TLA; coming from a company whose own name was...
Quel est le plus « rentable » ?
I recently received an enquiry which simply said that they had inherited some money and asked, “What would you suggest we do with the money; buy a rental property or invest in the stock market?”. This question is not at all unusual, so a great topic for this space....