Responding to what it says is the swarm of conjecture about its financial situation — and perhaps positioning itself for an initial public offering — Facebook released some information about its financial status on Tuesday.

It also announced that it had dismissed its chief financial officer, Gideon Yu. A Facebook spokesman, Larry Yu, would not provide details but said the company would look for a replacement who had experience running a public company. It is worth noting that Gideon Yu had that experience as the treasurer of Yahoo, before he went to YouTube and helped sell it to Google.

Regarding its financial state, Facebook said that in the quarter ending Tuesday, it beat its own internal projections and is on track to increase revenue by 70 percent this year.

It also said it had just completed its fifth straight quarter of profitability in terms of Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and is on track to be cash-flow positive by 2010.

The spokesman said the company did not need to raise more cash to get to profitability but would entertain the idea at the right valuation. “It’s all going to be a function of valuation and a valuation we are happy with,” he said. “It doesn’t mean a $15 billion valuation for preferred stock” — the deal Microsoft struck in 2007 — “but certainly we have a certain bar that we need to hit when it comes to our own belief on what we think our company is worth.”

Mr. Yu said Facebook was considering an initial offering, given its tremendous growth rate, but that it had no immediate plans to file to go public.

Gideon Yu did not immediately respond to voice mail and online messages. By: Brad Stone

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Source : Facebook Fires Finance Chief and Offers Some Numbers