Estimating Financial Failure in Businesses Using Artificial Neural Networks: Turkish Manufacturing Industry Model Study

Businesses need to be financially successful to achieve sustainable growth and maximise firm value. The financial failure of businesses is a situation that is carefully monitored by business managers, shareholders of the business, financial institutions that lend to the business, and the government. For this reason, in this study, the financial failure of 153 manufacturing companies operating in Turkey and traded on Borsa Istanbul has been tried to be estimated. In the research, the annual financial statements between the years 2009-2021 were used and artificial neural networks were preferred as the estimation method. Altman's Z score was used to define financial failure. In the artificial neural network model, 13 financial ratios were used as input variables. As the output variable, the firms that were below the value of 1.81 calculated as the Z score by Altman were considered unsuccessful, and the unsuccessful firms were assigned a value of 1 and the others a value of 0. This dummy variable consisting of 0 and 1 values is accepted as the output variable. According to the findings of the study, 1427 of 1631 observations that were initially considered to be financial failures were correctly estimated and a very high success rate of 87.49% was achieved. The findings will provide an important advantage to businesses and all stakeholders in terms of determining the causes of financial failure in advance.