Google insists CEO Larry Page IS on the mend from mystery illness as he runs meetings at company headquarters, 'talking but talking softly'

• Google CEO Larry Page was back in the office on Monday running meetings
  
• Has been out of the public eye since last month, missing an annual shareholder's meeting
  
• Executive Chairman said he is doing 'much better'
• Will still miss Google's post-earnings conference call next week
  

By Reuters Reporter

Published: 10:49 EDT, 13 July 2012 | Updated: 12:11 EDT, 13 July 2012

Recovered? Google CEO Larry Page was back in the office on Monday, after being absent from the public eye since last month

Google Chief Executive Larry Page was back in the office on Monday after being absent from the company's biggest public events for weeks.

Page was taking meetings at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said.

Schmidt spoke to reporters at the annual Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley, Idaho on Thursday.

He would not go into details but said the CEO was 'doing much better', adding that Page ran his meeting on Monday.

'He is talking, but talking softly,' Schmidt said.

Page has stayed out of the public eye since last month, when he was a no-show at an annual shareholders' meeting after having 'lost his voice,' Schmidt explained at the time. 

Page, who apart from being CEO is also one of the company's largest shareholders, is also expected to skip the company's post-earnings conference call next week.

His prolonged absence has raised questions about the health of the 39-year-old Google co-founder and the mystery condition affecting his voice.

He reassured employees about his health in June but little light was shed on the condition affecting his voice that side-lined him from high-profile events.

In an email Page told colleagues that there was 'nothing seriously wrong with me,' according to a source who had seen an internal staff memo.

The 39-year-old Google co-founder sat out his company's annual shareholders' meeting because he had 'lost his voice,' according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who informed attendees of the news at the start of the event.

The condition also caused Page to miss Google's annual developer conference as well as its quarterly results announcement.

Missing: Google CEO Larry Page speaks during a press announcement at Google's headquarters in New York, on May 21, 2012 but has not been seen much since

Back in the office: Page was taking meetings at Google headquarters in Mountain View, California (pictured)

Page continues to run Google's business, but has been asked to rest his voice, according to a Google spokeswoman. The company declined further comment on his condition.

His unexplained absence from the public spotlight comes at a time investors are keen to hear the company's thinking in getting into hardware with the Nexus 7 tablet and taking on the likes of Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire, and eventually Apple Inc's iPad.

The7-inch tablet, made by Taiwan's Asustek, is expected to help funnel mobile users to Google's online trove of content, including YouTube. Online pre-sales on Google Play and select retailers' websites such as Office Depot's have commenced, with the first tablets expected to arrive next week.

Demand 'was immense in the first week,' Schmidt said, without giving details.

Page's absence also raises questions about his condition, and the company's obligation to disclose issues of concern to shareholders.

Mystery: Page's lengthy absence has been put down to him having 'lost his voice' but few details have been released

Corporate governance experts say Google has met minimal disclosure requirements but will face increasing pressure while Page remains out of sight.

On Friday, Google's shares rose 1.1 per cent to $571.48, lifted along with the rest of the Nasdaq.

'It gets them over the first disclosure hurdle, that is they've alerted shareholders to the fact he's going to have this health effect,' said James Post, a professor of management at Boston University who specializes in corporate governance issues.

'The tough questions still lie ahead, and there will be continued pressure to keep answering those tough questions.'

While many people, including senior business executives, prefer to keep health matters private, public company CEOs have responsibilities to a 'wide set of constituents, some of whom have a legitimate claim to know about material information,' said Post.

Sick leave: The 39-year-old Google co-founder will miss the company's post-earnings conference call next week

The issue came to the fore several years ago when Apple Inc was criticized for being less than forthright about the health of CEO Steve Jobs, who died in October after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer.

'With the concerns over Steve Jobs, people are quick to jump to a conclusion that may not be the right conclusion to jump to,' said Needham & company analyst Kerry Rice.

Page's health could be regarded as an especially significant issue because he, along with Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin, have majority control of the Internet company through special voting shares.

Wall Street analysts mostly took the news of Page's extended absence in stride, though some expressed concern about the lack of information.

Honesty: Apple Inc was criticized for being less than forthright about the health of CEO Steve Jobs, who died in October after a long struggle with pancreatic cancer

'It's the number one thing I'm concerned about today just because there's so little data available,' said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth noted that Page has not posted any messages to his Google+ profile since May 25.

'We have no specific reason to think there is anything more to Larry's condition, but we find it odd that the company would already rule him out of the 2Q call, which is likely still a few weeks away,' Anmuth wrote to clients at the time.

'This could raise some questions among investors.'

Simon Best, a head and neck surgery specialist at the Johns Hopkins Voice Center, said most cases where a doctor might order a patient to rest their voice involved either a vocal cord haemorrhage, or throat surgery of some sort.

'We actually very rarely put people on complete voice rest where they are not cleared to talk or allowed to talk,' West said.

'There are probably some practice differences between physicians and whoever is treating him, but there are only two scenarios where we put people on voice rest: if they've had vocal cord surgery, or if they've had a vocal cord haemorrhage.'

Best, who has not treated Page, said haemorrhages were easily treatable, but a wide variety of conditions might necessitate surgery.

During the shareholder meeting in June, Google's Schmidt tried to lighten the situation by relaying comments that co-founder Brin Sergey had made about Page's condition: 'has said that this problem will make Larry a better CEO because he's going to have to choose his words very carefully.'

The world's No. 1 search engine generated $38 billion in revenue last year. But with consumers spending more time on social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter, and increasingly accessing the Web on smartphones instead of PCs, investors are trying to figure out how Google's business will be affected.

In May, Google acquired smartphone maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.