‘Rent- a-Kents’ close business enterprise, following Prince stated he would make representations to Putin’s regime

His poise and bearing are actually monarchical – as, of course, is the beard which tends to make him appear remarkably like his grandfather, George V, and, certainly, King George’s cousin, Tsar Nicholas II. But there’s never ever been something specifically regal about Prince Michael of Kent’s need to have to spend his personal way.

So King Charles will be heartened by the newest improvement in Prince Michael’s industrial affairs. I can reveal that he and his wife, the statuesque Marie-Christine – identified, formally, as Princess Michael – are closing their business enterprise, Cantium Solutions.

It comes significantly less than a year following one particular of the most lurid episodes in the couple’s chequered monetary history, when Prince Michael, a fluent Russian speaker, told undercover reporters posing as gold investors that he could be hired to make ‘confidential’ representations to Vladimir Putin’s regime – for £10,000-a-day.

He added that he was ready to endorse the – completely fictional – enterprise by recording a speech in return for a $200,000 charge, utilizing his apartment in Kensington Palace as a backdrop.

‘I have never ever had any close connection prior to with gold and the concept tends to make me pretty pleased,’ Prince Michael added. He was significantly less pleased when it became apparent that he’d been recorded by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme and by a Sunday newspaper.

Prince Michael (left) and his wife – the statuesque Marie-Christine, formally identified as Princess Michael (ideal) ¿ are closing their business enterprise, Cantium Solutions The enterprise ¿ Prince Michael owns additional than 75 per cent, and he and Princess Michael are the only directors ¿ was founded in 1978, the year they married

His spokesman subsequently issued a statement, explaining that Prince Michael had ‘no specific relationship’ with Putin, possessing final met him in 2003 and possessing had ‘no get in touch with with him or his workplace considering that then’.

Right now, his spokesman declines to comment on the application at Providers Residence to ‘strike off’ Cantium, even though Jeremy Jennings, a Brussels-primarily based chartered accountant named as Cantium’s get in touch with, does not respond to my calls.

But it would seem to mark the finish of an era for the ‘Rent-A-Kents’, as the couple have been cruelly identified. The enterprise, of which Prince Michael, 80, owns additional than 75 per cent, and of which he and Princess Michael, 78, are the only directors, was founded in 1978 – the year they married.

They have been normally candid about the scope of their income-creating ventures, with Princess Michael declaring that she would ‘go anyplace for a hot meal’ – and seemingly proving the point by attending the opening of a Pleased Eater on the A3 close to Guildford.

In 2012, it emerged that they’d received £320,000 – to help with employees charges – from oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who, the following year, was discovered dead in his bath at his Berkshire mansion.

The Prince and Princess Michael of Kent