Financial crisis and firm performance: empirical evidence from Turkey

The objective of this study is to examine the impact of concentrated ownership and business group affiliation on the performance of Turkish firms during the financial crisis by controlling balance sheet currency exposure, international involvement and firm size. Our analysis focuses on a 12-month window encapsulating the February 2001 financial crisis. Our findings show that balance sheet exposure is the key determinant of the firm performance during the crisis periods. While we find evidence that firms with higher concentrated ownership experience lower stock market performance prior and during the financial crisis, business group affiliation does not have any impact on the performance. However, there is weak evidence that stock market performance increases with the level of business group diversification.