The Effect of Covid-19 on Business Financial Performance: A Research on Forest Industrial Enterprises Traded on Borsa Istanbul

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant negative impact on the Turkish economy and the global economy. Turkey's economy contracted by 10.2% in 2020, recording the most significant decline since the 1950s. The effects of the epidemic could also be observed on companies which had to close or lay off staff. This study aims to examine the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the forest industry by revealing the financial performance of publicly traded forest industry companies in Turkey before and after COVID-19. For this purpose, the financial performances of 11 companies operating in the forest products industry in Turkey and registered in the BIST XKGT index in the 2017-2022 period were examined. In this context, we used the integrated Entropy -CP method. In the initial phase of analysis, criteria weights were determined using the entropy method to assess the significance levels of the financial ratios. Subsequently, financial success rankings were generated by employing the CP method. In general, it was observed that the weight values of the criteria were close to each other. As a result, it was determined that the companies showed the best average financial success in 2022 and the lowest average financial performance in 2017. Following the pandemic's occurrence, some companies' performance improved, while others experienced a partial decline. Therefore, no general improvement or worsening trend could be detected during the years of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the context of this study, it was concluded that the pandemic did not affect the financial performance of companies operating in the forest products sector.