Predicting Corporates’ Dividends and an Empirical Study on Borsa Istanbul Industry Sector

The aim of this study is to determine the factors which have an impact on firms' dividend policies and develop a model to predict the dividend payments of industrial firms which are quoted on borsa istanbul (bist). to reach this aim, a multiple linear regression (mlr) analysis was carried out on data collected between 2003 and 2012 from a sample of 168 publicly traded industrial firms on bist. important variables affecting the dividend policy was determined and a model that can be used to estimate the dividend payment was composed. as a result it is seen that, by using the past values of variables, the model can predict the gross cash dividend rate paid in the current period, successfully. the revealed results of this model supports existing dividend policy theories like lintner’s model, signaling, free cash flows and life cycle theories .