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One of the biggest problems facing King Consolidated Holdings (Kingco) is the lack of a South African pub culture. So says one retail analyst, who believes the group should consider delisting from the JSE.

In the year to February, Kingco managed to boost revenue only slightly, from R231 million to R235m, but operating losses before interest dropped considerably from R505m to R9.3m.

One of the main problems, the analyst says, is that people don’t frequent pubs that often because of the omnipresent spectre of crime in the country.

The offerings of Kingco’s pubs are also considered rather ersatz compared to, for example, its European counterparts – but the group remains fiercely positive as it expects to cash in on the tourism boost next year.

Compared to competitors Taste Holdings and Famous Brands, Kingco’s brands have not been all that well positioned.

Another retail analyst said recently that strong brands benefited from consumers trading down to cheaper options.

Key players like Spur, which had been in the game for a long time, were far more likely to benefit than the lacklustre offerings of Kingco’s Saddles.

In the past 12 months the company has lost more than 70 percent of its value on the bourse. Not only is it faced with ailing financials, it has constantly been rapped over the knuckles for not complying with the JSE’s requirements for turning in financial statements on time, most recently last month.

In 2006, the Financial Services Board investigated the case in which the company had posted headline earnings and shortly thereafter headlines losses in its trading statement. With a market capitalisation of R5m and a price:earnings ratio of minus 0.9, the group is “too small and going nowhere slowly”, some say.

Non-executive director Paul Cotterell, who owns 75 percent of the company, recently said he did not speak to the media because he was constantly misquoted. Neither he nor operations director Ivan Nitsche have responded to the suggestion that the group should delist.

Edited by Peter DeIonno. With contributions by Ingi Salgado, Ann Crotty and Florence de Vries