Facebook seeks new finance chief as Yu leaves

Facebook said Tuesday that its finance chief has left and that it is seeking a successor with "public company experience," a move that will feed speculation that the social networking titan is preparing for an IPO.
Gideon Yu, who had served as chief financial officer since 2007, departed for undisclosed reasons.

Co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that an IPO was possible for the privately held Palo Alto company in the future, but always cautioned that such a move was not imminent.

In any case, investor appetite for initial public offerings has evaporated because of the depressed economy. Only one U.S. company went through with an IPO in the first quarter, according to Renaissance Capital, while many more are waiting for the climate to improve.

Yu had previously served at Yahoo as treasurer and at YouTube, helping negotiate the sale of the video site to Google in 2006. He had also briefly worked at Sequoia Capital as a venture capitalist.

Facebook's recruitment of Yu was part of a broader effort to bring experienced hands into the company, including former Google executive Sheryl Sandberg as chief operating officer. Relative old-timers at the 5-year-old company have been leaving over the past year, including co-founder and lead engineer Dustin Moskovitz; Adam d'Agelo, the chief technology officer; and Matt Cohler, an early executive.

Facebook has continued its phenomenal growth and is approaching 200 million users globally. Although it has struggled at times to capitalize on its user base through online advertising, it has made significant progress, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Facebook has turned in five consecutive quarters of profits, under the accounting formula of EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to the source. Revenue is expected to increase at least 70 percent in 2009; the company is expected to be cash flow positive in 2010.

Venture capitalists have poured money into Facebook in several rounds of funding. In 2007, Microsoft bought a 1.6 percent stake for $240 million, which valued the site at $15 billion.

Many investors now call that valuation excessively high.

E-mail Verne Kopytoff at vkopytoff@sfchronicle.com.