The latest Top Companies index dished out a few big surprises. Unheralded shipping group Santova Logistics is the top ranked business among the up-and-coming firms on the AltX, the JSE's junior board.

Formerly known as Spectrum Shipping, Santova Logistics generated turnover of R1,95bn for the year to end-February 2008, which was the largest from all the AltX listed companies in 2008. It has also found some institutional support with equity funds increasing their holdings from R8m to R43,4m. This is despite its market cap halving from R123m to R64,9m.

The same innocuous rise goes for second placed Namibian distribution group CIC Holdings, which generated turnover of N$1,9bn for the year to end-June.

Santova Logistics and CIC's rise came without fanfare. Firms like Vox Telecom and Esorfranki - formerly Esor - have had a fair bit of favourable press, but Santova Logistics and CIC were barely mentioned in the business media.

But the shipping and logistics companies' ascendency should also be seen in the context of their thin margins.

Of the R1,95m generated in turnover by Santova Logistics, only R6m was attributable to shareholders as profit.

The same goes for CIC. It had an attributable profit of only N$31,7m for the period.

Third placed Vox Telecom and fourth placed BSI Steel generated R1,87bn and R1,43bn in turnover respectively, and had a profit of R112m and R99,3m before exceptional items.

The same goes for fifth placed Esorfranki. It had turnover of R1,01bn and still managed to have an attributable profit of R115m.

The results coming out of AltX listed companies in 2008 largely reflected a buoyant economy. But this changed in the last few months of the year when a banking crisis in the US almost sparked a global economic collapse.

Esorfranki CEO Bernie Krone says the resulting downturn was so fast, it was like surviving a plane accident. The people in the front of the plane - the economies of North America and Western Europe - got incinerated, while those at the back, mainly African economies, fared a little better.

This does not mean SA firms will not take some pain. In fact, this is already happening. Investors sensed the downturn in the closing months of 2008 and have since fled the AltX.

So far there has been one notable casualty. Food distributor Country Foods has been suspended at its own request when it incurred larger than expected losses.

The uncertain economic outlook is the biggest test for these fledgling AltX companies. Some might have been around for more than 30 years but their life as a listed entity has been relatively short.

How they deal with a downturn will be a key measure of the viability of the AltX.

One company that will not be around to see how it all ends is mobile phone accessories distributor Celcom. The group had turnover of more than R1bn but lack of investor interest resulted in it opting to remove itself from the exchange.