6 February  1971

Beginning of the new UK tax year. All the Stones are now resident in France and can only visit Britain for a maximum 90 days a year before becoming liable for tax. Mick has a house in Biot; Charlie has a farm- house in the Cevennes; Mick Taylor lives in Grasse, centre of the French perfume industry; Keith rents Nellcot, a huge villa on the coast at Ville-sur-Mer which is used as the group’s HQ for recording and business purposes.
The Stones Mobile, a large trailer truck that has been painted khaki, 'for camouflage', and containing £100,000 worth of 16-track equipment is brought to France to convert Keith's basement into a studio.
It announced that Stargroves, Mick Jagger's country mansion, left vacant by his move to France, is being outfitted as a total live-in recording studio complete with cooks, fireplaces, and round-the- clock facilities. It can be rented for £2,500 a week.
In Cannes the Stones arrive by yacht at Port Pierre to sign a distribution contrast with Kinney National which owns the Atlantic, Warner-Reprise, and Elektra record labels. The Stones label will be run by their own international corporation based in Geneva, with branches in London and New York. Effectively, Marshall Chess and the Stones will direct activities. Jagger says, "By signing this contract, we are guaranteeing to produce six new albums over the next four years; this includes 'Sticky Fingers'. Additionally perhaps there may be some solo albums projecting. The Rolling Stones individually over this period."
At the party afterwards at the Canto Club House, attended by a contingent from the UK press flown over that day and accommodated in the swish Carlton Hotel, the Stones' guests include Steven Stills and the president and founder of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun.