Abstract:

The economies of many countries have come to a standstill due to the contraction in global production caused by COVID-19 epidemic which was declared a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020. The basic metal industry, which is the locomotive of the Turkish manufacturing sector, is one of the sectors greatly affected by the pandemic. The financial performances of companies in the sector seriously affect the decision-making processes of managers and capital market investors. In this study, the financial performances of 20 firms listed in the BIST Base Metal Index (XMANA) during the pandemic were analyzed. The analysis results of the pandemic period (2020/06 – 2021/06) were compared with the previous one-year period and significant changes were found. For performance measurement, 15 different criteria were determined which were compiled from the balance sheet and income statements, consisting of liquidity, profitability, cost, value, growth, capital structure and activity ratios. In the study, Entropy, which is a multi-criteria decision-making method, was used to calculate the importance weights of the criteria; in addition, the MARCOS Method, a new method proposed in 2020, was used to rank companies according to the determined criteria. According to the analysis results, the metal industry company with the highest financial performance during the pandemic period is ÇEMTAŞ Çelik Makina Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. (ÇEMTS). Kardemir Karabük Demir Çelik Sanayi A.Ş. (KRDMD) and AYES Çelik Hasır ve Çit Sanayi A.Ş. (AYES) followed it, respectively.