SBM to open in Macau

SBM's Jean-Luc Biamonti
SBM’s Jean-Luc Biamonti

Monaco’s Société des Bains de Mer has announced that it will next year open a brasserie in Macau, according to Le Figaro. The brasserie will be the second branch of Monaco’s famous Café de Paris and is expected to open sometime in the middle of 2017 at the Galaxy resort.
Jean-Luc Biamonti, president of SBM, said that the opening in China is more a question of image, “and to have a foot there, rather than for money”.
The company said that it was also hopeful that the publicity might attract some Chinese gamblers to Monaco. Last year, Galaxy Entertainment Group bought a five percent stake in SBM, which GEG vice chairman Francis Liu described as a “strategic investment” that might result in international collaboration in the near future.
The prestigious French daily said that “the chronically indebted” SBM is expected to announce another loss-making year for 2016/2017 after an operating loss of €31.5 million for the last year.
The former Portuguese colony of Macau passed Las Vegas as the world’s number-one gambling spot in 2002.