Performance Evaluation of Malaysian Maritime Business Companies During Covid-19 with TOPSIS

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted global maritime business especially maritime transportation. It has disrupted the services of transportation of cargoes using ocean vessels and directly the performance of the many businesses. The Malaysian maritime business performance has also been affected from such condition. Many of these maritime shipping companies are struggling to maintain their business financial and operations during the pandemic period. The research is intended to evaluate the financial performance of Malaysian maritime business companies during the pandemic period and rank these Malaysian maritime business companies performance during the same period. The financial report from three Malaysian maritime business companies listed in the Bursa Malaysia involved in ocean transportation has been selected for evaluation of ratios. The study was conducted by using five financial ratios to evaluate these business financial performances consisting of liquidity, profitability, activity, leverage, and return on investment. The technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method was being utilized to rank the performance of these maritime business. Such evaluation is able to identify which maritime businesses company is able to perform especially during a global shock period such as the Covid-19 pandemic, and the approach is able to evaluate if these maritime businesses are able to survive. The result found indicates that MISC is the shipping company which is the best performer, while Maybulk is the lowest performer during the Covid-19 pandemic. This research is able to provide insights in Malaysian maritime and how they are managing their operations and finances in ensuring their survival during a challenging period.