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Norwegian Air's founder and chief executive officer Bjorn Kjos has announced that he is stepping down.

The airline says that Geir Karlsen, its chief financial officer and deputy chief executive, will step up to the top job in the interim.

The firm said Mr Kjos will continue in a new role as an adviser to the chairman Niels Smedegaard.

Trading has been challenging for the airline which was forced to tap investors for 3bn Norwegian kroner (£268m) this year to improve its finances.

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Swiss Re says it has suspended the IPO of its UK business ReAssure due to weak demand from investors.

Swiss Re's chief financial officer John Dacey, says: "While we firmly believe that the long-term interests of ReAssure are best served by a more diversified shareholder base, there has been no pressing need for Swiss Re to divest shares at a price that we consider to be unrepresentative of ReAssure's value and future prospects."

Swiss Re has postponed the £3bn flotation of its UK life insurance business ReAssure.

BBC Radio 5 Live

The UK economy grew at a better pace than expected in May, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics.

But Claire Shaw, senior portfolio manager at Syz Asset Management, says the headline figure of 0.3% growth "probably masked some interesting underlying data which was that the recovery in May was really due to the upturn in car production".

She says: "If you remember, factory shutdowns were moved from August to April so really a return to normal levels of car production boosted UK GDP in May.

But the wider picture, I would say, is fairly subdued. Services output which is about 80% of the economy, remained flat in May. And within that, financial services, which is about 7% of UK GDP, contracted actually."

BBC Radio 5 Live

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When it comes to female representation on FTSE 350 boards, there's good news and there's bad news.

The good is that Cranfield School of Management says that UK FTSE companies are on target to reach 33% average gender diversity on boards by 2020.

Leading the way is the FTSE 100 where there is 32% gender diversity on boards. The FTSE 250, though. still has some way to go at 27%.

Deeper research has found, however, the female appointments to boards appear to be shorter and according to Dr Doyin Atewologun of the Cranfield School of Management: "Women don't seem to be put into positions of significant power such as the chair positions."

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Asian markets rose across indices on Thursday, boosted by US Fed chairman Jerome Powell apparent hint that an interest rate cut is imminent.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 rose 0.52% to 21,645.45.

In China, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 1.2% to 28,534.66 while the Shanghai Composite was up 0.3%.

Welcome to Business Live.

Today, the French government will decide whether to go ahead with its Digital Services Tax on US search giant Google.

It has already provoked the ire of "tariff man", AKA US president Donald Trump who has ordered an investigation into the move.

We'll be keeping an eye on the markets, especially after US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell appeared to firm up the chances of an interest rate cut.

As always, we'd love to hear from you. Email us at bizlivepage@bbc.co.uk