Özet:

Purpose - This paper focuses on the corporate life cycle concept which is one of the vital theories to analyze the firms more homogeneously. The aim of this study is to elaborate main life cycle classification procedures and to compare the most cited methodologies regarding financial indicators according to the expectations from the stages. Methodology - We review the literature and especially examine three firm life cycle methods Anthony and Ramesh (1992), Yonpae and Chen (2006) and Dickinson (2011). We also develop five hypotheses that are related to firm size, profitability, stock returns, liquidity and risk of the firms for three different stages through using descriptive statistics and t test. Findings -  According to the results, while growth firms have higher risk, mature firms are more profitable and get higher stock returns. On the other hand, decline firms are bigger and more liquid than the other stages. The findings also suggest that Anthony and Ramesh (1992) life cycle classification procedure provides a little better insight than the other methods. Conclusion - The study defines the firm life cycle notion which is an expanded version of product life cycle through explaining the most common classification procedures. Investors should concentrate on firms that are at growth stage since they have more potential to receive profitable projects. However, mature firms are at the peak point of the profitability and the risk is relatively low. Firms at the decline stage are one of the biggest candidates of stagnation and the capacity cannot be fully utilized.

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