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Oracle names Henley chairman

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CIOL Bureau
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Elinor Mills Abreu



SAN FRANCISCO: Software company Oracle Corp., seeking to strengthen investor confidence while it wages a hostile takeover battle for a rival, on Monday named Jeff Henley as chairman, leaving Larry Ellison with the sole title of chief executive.



Henley will step down as chief financial officer when a replacement is found.



Splitting the offices of chairman and chief executive is high on the list of corporate governance reform advocates, who favor diluting power at the top of large companies.



Meanwhile, Safra Catz and Charles Phillips will share the job of president, reporting directly to Ellison. Catz will continue to be in charge of global operations and Phillips will be in charge of field operations, including sales, marketing and consulting.



The Redwood Shores, California-based company has been without a president since Ray Lane left in June 2000.



A spokeswoman said the changes were not part of a succession plan at the Silicon Valley software company, which has been criticized for not indicating a clear successor to Ellison.



The executive moves come amid a $7.3 billion hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft Inc. The European Commission on Monday said it would push back its deadline for investigating anti-trust implications of the proposed takeover from March 30 to an undetermined date. Th



e European regulator said more time was needed to gather further information.



Henley has been chief financial officer of Oracle for nearly 13 years. "He's an expert on corporate governance and accounting," Ellison said in a statement. "I'm looking forward to working with Jeff for years to come."



Both Henley and Ellison are 59 years old.



The Oracle board of directors adopted the changes partly to complement the company's "good corporate governance," said Dr. Michael Boskin, chairman of the nomination and governance committee and of the committee on compensation and management development of the board.



"I do think Oracle is very good in terms of corporate governance issues," said Patrick Walravens, a software analyst at JMP Securities. "I would like to see all my companies do this."



Separating the chairman and chief executive positions and having two presidents will broaden the company's base of power, said Mark Murphy of First Albany Corp. In addition, it will free Henley up from the day-to-day responsibilities, he added.



"Henley has been basically expected to retire for quite some time now," Murphy said. "Ellison is still going to run the show."



Catz joined Oracle in April 1999 and has been a board member since 2001. Phillips, a former star software analyst at Morgan Stanley, joined Oracle in May and was named to the board on Monday.



Shares of Oracle closed at $14.66 on the Nasdaq, up 3.46 percent. They were little changed in after-hours trade.



(Additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein and Michael Kahn in San Francisco)



© Reuters

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