South Africa, Aug. 13 -- How do you define a top company? For our purposes, using criteria developed by UCT's Development Policy Research Unit, we look at whether a business is large, growing, productive, empowered, engaged and quality driven.

Through our dedicated research team, for a decade and a half, we have documented the excellence evident in South African businesses across a hundred sectors with the top five weighted and ranked - hence the magazine's title.

This year, in its quest to uncover South Africa's Top 500 Best Managed Companies, Topco Media's research department has uncovered some interesting facts about the South African economy:

The real estate holdings and development sector in South Africa showed resilience during t...