Yogendrarajah, Rathiranee. (2015).

Impact of Capital Structure on Profitability –

Evidence from selected Trading Companies in Colombo Stock Exchange, Sri Lanka,
International Journal in Management and Social Science. International Journal of
Management and Social Sciences. Vol. 03. Pp 469 – 479. Capital structure decision
is important because the profitability of an organization is directly affected by
the capital structure decision. Proper capital structure leads the firm to achieve
the better performance and ensures the sustainability in its operation. The purpose
of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of capital structure on
profitability in trading companies in Sri Lanka. For this purpose the study
investigated eight listed trading companies in Colombo Stock Exchange of Sri Lanka
the past 5years period from 2008 to 2012. In this study, independent variable that
is, capital structure of the company’s is measured by leverage ratios of Debt to
equity ratio and Debt to Assets ratio. Five profitability ratios such as gross
profit ratio (GPR), net profit ratio (NPR), return on asset (ROA), return on equity
(ROE) and return on capital employed (ROCE) are used as the dependent variables for
the study. The data has been analyzed by using descriptive statistics, correlation
analysis and regression analysis to find out the association between the variables.
The results suggest that 44% of the total assets in the trading companies of Sri
Lanka are representing by debt and on the basis of correlation analysis Debt to
equity ratio and Debt to total Assets ratio positively and moderately correlated
with gross profit ratio, negatively and moderately correlated with net profit ratio
, positively and weakly created with return on capital employed and negatively and
weakly correlated with other profitability ratios.. The outcome of the study may
help to the entrepreneurs, Board of directors and policy makers to design better
decisions in the debt-equity choice. Keywords: Capital structure, Profitability,
Total debt.