Ellison stepping down at Oracle – sort of

SAN FRANCISCO – Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is stepping aside as CEO after 37 years at the helm of the business software maker, ending a colorful reign marked by his flamboyant behavior and outlandish wealth amassed while building one of the world’s best-known technology companies.

With the changing of the guard announced Thursday, Ellison will be handing over his job to his two top lieutenants, Safra Catz and Mark Hurd, who become co-CEOs.

Ellison, 70, intends to still play an influential role at Oracle Corp. He is taking over as Oracle’s executive chairman, replacing Jeff Henley in the position, and will oversee the engineering departments as chief technology officer. What’s more, Ellison remains Oracle’s biggest shareholder with a 25 percent stake in the Redwood Shores, California, company that accounts for most of his $51 billion fortune.

Catz, Oracle’s chief financial officer until Thursday, will be responsible for manufacturing, legal and finance, while Hurd will supervise sales and all services. Both of them will report to Oracle’s board instead of Ellison. Oracle isn’t hiring a CFO to replace Catz.

“I am going to continue to do what I have been doing the past several years and they are going to continue doing what they have been doing the past several years,” Ellison told analysts during a Thursday conference call.

Given that Catz and Hurd are already handling many of the same duties as Oracle’s co-presidents, the new pecking order may not seem like much of a change, especially among investors who worried about the company’s sluggish growth in recent years.

Oracle’s stock slipped 85 cents, or 2 percent, to $40.70 in Thursday’s extended trading following the company’s announcement. The downturn may have had more to do with Wall Street’s disappointment with Oracle’s fiscal first-quarter earnings, which were also announced late Thursday and missed analyst targets, than with the reshuffling of management duties.

The shake-up comes at a critical point in Oracle’s history. It is trying to adapt to the technological upheaval that is causing more of its corporate customers to lease software applications stored in remote data centers instead of paying licensing fees to install programs on machines kept in their own offices. The shift to Internet-connected software has become known as “cloud computing.”

“While there was some speculation Larry could step down, the timing is a bit of a head scratcher in our opinion and the Street will have many questions,” said FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives.

Since he co-founded Oracle with $1,200 of his own money in 1977, Ellison has become as well known for his antics away from the office as his accomplishments as the company’s CEO.

In 2012, he bought his own Hawaiian island by acquiring 98 percent of Lanai. Last year, Ellison staged the boating race for America’s Cup in the San Francisco Bay, where a team of professional sailors that he personally financed won the trophy for the second straight time.

Catz, 52, is a former investment banker who joined Oracle in 1999. Hurd, 57, has been with Oracle for four years but is best known as the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co.