COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STOCK RETURNS OF ZOMBIE FIRMS AND BIST 30 FIRMS WITH STATISTICAL METHODS

Abstract

The concept of ‘zombie’ companies was first proposed by Kane in 1987. The three common features of these companies are listed as follows; high debt level, low profit rate and productive companies reduce their productivity. Zombie firms are defined as companies with persistently low profitability, high leverage, or negative equity capital. However, instead of defining a business as a zombie with single company data, it would be more accurate to look at bank and company level data that also show the lending relationships between credit institutions and corporate debtors. (Álvarez et al., 2023). In our study, companies having negative equity capital for at least three consecutive years were considered zombies, whereas these companies were selected from the ISO 1000 industrial enterprises. Particular attention was paid to ensure these companies continued to be traded on BIST. Additionally, BIST 30 companies were analyzed and stock returns and statistical evaluations were also analyzed.