The Sunday Times Top 100 Companies awards dinner, in association with Johnnie Walker, will take place in Johannesburg on October 27. The country's leading barometer of corporate performance rewards both the companies that have brought investors the highest returns over a five-year rolling period, and the business leaders who hold the reins of capital in a particularly tough global operating environment.This year the lifetime achievement award will be presented to Dr Christo Wiese.He barely needs an introduction to South Africans, who will be familiar with his career trajectory, from joining the family Pepkor business to helping steer some of the country's best-known retail brands such as Shoprite across our borders and into the continent.Wiese, who was recently inducted into the World Retail Congress's Hall of Fame, has become a trusted allocator of company capital - a dealmaker the UK's Telegraph newspaper called a "billionaire bargain hunter" - and someone shareholders trust to deliver value time and again.story_article_left1Whether it is his Brait holding company swooping for offshore retailer New Look, Shoprite branching out into Hungry Lion in the fast-food segment, Brait again scooping the Virgin Active brand or ultimately selling the Pepkor business to Steinhoff, Wiese is not content to be idle for long.This history of savvy acquisitions and strategy has earned Wiese the respect of his peers and this year's lifetime achievement award, which will be presented to him at the Top 100 Companies gala dinner.Wiese's award will complement those for the top-placing company in this year's Top 100 rankings, and for business leader of the year - both of which will be announced on the night.The guest speaker for the 2015 event will be Martin Meredith, a renowned Africa scholar, writer and historian.Meredith, a biographer of African leaders and chronicler of the continent post-independence, began working in Africa as a journalist for The Observer and the UK's Sunday Times in the '60s, before returning to the UK as a research fellow at Oxford University.With bestseller titles on the state of modern Africa under his belt, Meredith, who has written several books on Nelson Mandela and South Africa under apartheid and democratic rule, is poised to deliver a typically erudite analysis of the state of play for business on the continent and within our borders.The Top 100 Companies awards acknowledge listed companies that have earned the most for their shareholders.The share price performance of every company listed on the JSE is calculated on the basis of R10000 invested over five years. The winner is the company that earns the most for its shareholders, after taking into account normal and special dividends and bonus shares reinvested...