Top Companies Publishing and Events is a leader in South African business-to-business communication. Through an authoritative, definitive and poignant stable of publications and events, Topco works to ensure local and international businesses have access to effective vehicles of communication and marketing, distributed to key public and private sector stakeholders in South Africa and abroad. Topco Media publications are annual directories of information on top performing private and public sector companies and organisations.
Topco Publisher and Chairman, Richard Fletcher started a company called 5 Star, in England in the 1980s. 5 Star did then what Orange Mountain Media continues to do today - community advertising. By the early 1990s, Fletcher had moved to South Africa after noticing a gap for community advertising in the local niche market, and by 1993 the South African equivalent of 5 Star, Orange Mountain Media (OMM), had moved to South Africa. OMM started out by producing below-the-line community advertising, and publishing small brochures and monthly magazines. OMM is stronger than ever and continues to provide top quality below-the-line community advertising across South Africa.
1997 saw the company actively begin working on what was to become one of the most successful business-to-business directories in South Africa. The widely regarded
South Africa’s Top 300 Companies: National Edition began with the
Western Cape’s Top 300 Companies, first published in 1998. The following year saw the company publish sister publications for the Cape and Northern Regions, but soon realised there was a growing demand for one national publication to showcase South Africa’s best in business. In 2000, all the regional
Top 300s were combined to form
South Africa’s Top 300 Companies: National Edition. The publication has since been renamed
South Africa's Top Performing Companies.
In 2001
Impumelelo: South Africa’s Top 300 Empowerment Companies was born.
Impumelelo proved to be one of the most successful undertakings in the history of the company, giving rise to 2004’s once-off publication,
South Africa’s First Ten Years: Government and Business – launched during the 10 years of freedom celebrations – as well as sister empowerment publication,
Top Women in Business and Government. Topco also publishes
Top 500: South Africa’s Best Companies, and
Estetica, the world’s leading hair fashion magazine.
BEE Online is Topco’s empowerment accreditation service. This fully-fledged empowerment rating, trading and procurement website has a supporting empowerment news portal and ezine.
OMM continues to provide community advertising, and has spawned the National Television Network (NTN) – effectively taking OMM into the 21st Century.
Today, Topco is home to:
*A highly successful publishing division (Top Companies Publishing) that is focused now on developing its online capability while constantly developing its publishing stable;
*A dedicated conferecing and events division (Top Conferences and Events) that by the end of the year will have produced close on 30 conferences;
*A spin-off production house/advertising agency (Equilibrium Advertising) that not only serves the production and editorial needs of the publishing and event tiers of the company, but one that has started taking on its own clients;
*A fully-fledged empowerment news portal and ezine; and empowerment trading, procurement and rating agency; and
*A community advertising arm (OMM & NTN) that has been successfully managed and grown over the last 15 years.
For more information, visit
www.topco.co.za, or call 021 791 7100.