(Reuters) - Oracle Corp forecast current-quarter adjusted profit largely below Wall Street’s estimates and indicated to slowing growth in its soaring Cloud business, sending the company’s shares down as much as 5 percent in aftermarket trading.

Shares of the business software maker, which reported market-beating revenue and profit for the first quarter on Thursday, initially rose but reversed course after the forecast.

Oracle - a late entrant to the cloud market - has been aggressively pushing into the business as more and more clients ditch the costlier software licensing model.

Oracle said in late August it would hire more than 5,000 engineers, consultants, sales and support people this year to boost the fast-growing business.

Earlier this month, the company linked the equity package of its two CEOs, Mark Hurd and Safra Catz, and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison to performance targets that include $20 billion in total cloud revenue in a fiscal year.