Oracle CEO Mark Hurd takes leave of absence for health-related reasons as company reports disappointing quarterly results

Hurd will nevertheless continue to receive all employment benefits during his leave of absence from Oracle

Oracle co-CEO Mark Hurd is taking a leave of absence due to health-related reasons, the company announced on Wednesday.

During his absence co-CEO Safra Catz, and founder and CTO Larry Ellison, will handle Hurd's responsibilities.

Oracle didn't provide any details on what Hurd's health issues might be, but added that he will continue to receive all employment benefits during his absence.

In a statement, Hurd said that the leave came at his request. "Though we all worked hard together to close the first quarter, I've decided that I need to spend time focused on my health," Hurd wrote in a message to Oracle employees.

Hurd joined Oracle as president in September 2010, about a month after his controversial resignation from Hewlett-Packard. Hurd had been the CEO of HP since 2005, but was forced to resign following allegations of sexual harassment.

Prior to HP, Hurd spent about 25 years at NCR, where he rose to the position of CEO. In 2014, Ellison appointed Hurd as co-CEO of Oracle alongside Catz. In that capacity, Hurd has administered sales, marketing, support, consulting, and other units focusing on industries.

The news of Hurd's medical leave came the same day that Oracle released disappointing results for its fiscal first quarter.

The company was expected to report its quarterly earnings on Thursday, but released them a day early as the management felt "it made sense to share all of our news at once" following Mark's decision to go on a medical leave.

Oracle announced that its total revenues were $9.22 billion, just missing Wall Street consensus expectations of $9.29 billion.

Nearly 75 per cent of the Oracle's revenue comes from cloud services and licence support, the company claimed, although it has long been criticised for obfuscating the performance of its cloud push by bundling cloud revenues in with software licence sales.

Oracle has struggled to achieve organic growth for some time. For instance, in March, the company reported flat third quarter sales, but claimed that its cloud revenues were growing. At that time, Safra Catz stated that the company was shifting its cloud focus to its infrastructure business, which would include its widely used database products.