The Investigaton of Relationship Between Dividend Policy, Payout Ratio and Financial Performance

Abstract

Firms decide to distribute earnings to their shareholders or to retain them to use for future investments. This situation is called as dividend policy. The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate relationship between dividend policy and financial performance of firms which are traded in BIST Manufacturing Sector. 1350 firm-year observations covering the period 2005-2015 belonging to sector firms were used in the study. Return on asset (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) variables were used as a proxy of firm’s financial performance. According to obtained results there is positive and statistically significant relationship between firm’s dividend policy, payout ratio and financial performance. In addition, positive and statistically significant relationships were obtained between changes in sales, total assets and firm’s financial performance indicators. Last, there is negative statistically relationship between firm’s leverage ratio and financial performance.