LVMH shares jumped more than 12% on Friday morning, after the world’s largest luxury group posted higher-than-expected sales for 2023 and raised its annual dividend.

The owner of Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon and Hennessy, as well as brands including Givenchy, Bulgari and Sephora, on Thursday night reported sales amounting to 86.15 billion euros ($93.34 billion) for 2023, exceeding consensus forecasts and equating to 13% organic growth from the previous year.

Organic revenue was up 10% in the fourth quarter.

The result was boosted in particular by 14% annual growth in the critical fashion and leather goods sector, along with 11% growth in perfumes and cosmetics. Wines and spirits meanwhile posted a 4% decline.

“Our performance in 2023 illustrates the exceptional appeal of our Maisons and their ability to spark desire, despite a year affected by economic and geopolitical challenges,” Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, said in a statement.

“While remaining vigilant in the current context, we enter 2024 with confidence, backed by our highly desirable brands and our agile teams.”

After a boom during the pandemic, the luxury sector endured a rough end to 2023 as challenging geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions weighed on consumer spending, particularly in the U.S. and China.

LVMH in April 2023 became the first European company to surpass $500 billion in market value, but a share price decline over the last six months allowed it to be eclipsed as Europe’s largest company by Danish pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk.

British luxury brand Burberry earlier this month issued a profit warning in response to slowing demand, as the balloon in high-end spending that peaked during the pandemic loses air. At the time, the news sent Burberry shares plunging and dragged down the wider sector.

Yet luxury stocks broadly advanced on Thursday as investors took heart from LVMH’s reassuring results. Burberry’s own shares were up 1.7% Friday morning.

Javier Gonzalez Lastra, portfolio manager of the Tema Luxury ETF, told CNBC on Thursday that investors are trying to gauge where the bottom of the earnings cycle revision is for the luxury sector. He predicted that earnings are “likely to get tougher” through the first half of 2024 because of last year’s unusually high annual comparisons.

Arnault, however, is pinning some hope on LVMH’s partnership with the Paris 2024 Olympics, which he said “provides a new opportunity to reinforce our global leadership position in luxury goods and promote France’s reputation for excellence around the world.

The average FTSE 100 CEO will have earned more this year than the median full-time worker’s annual salary by 1 p.m. London time on Thursday, according to estimates from the High Pay Centre think tank.

The U.K.’s top bosses will surpass the milestone an hour earlier than they did in 2023, the calculations suggest, while leading bankers will exceed it on Jan. 17.

The calculations are based on the High Pay Centre’s analysis of the most recent available CEO pay figures from British blue chip companies’ annual reports, compared with government data on pay levels across the U.K. economy.

Median FTSE 100 CEO pay (excluding pension) currently stands at £3.81 million ($4.84 million), 109 times the median full time worker’s pay of £34,963, the think tank said. This represents a 9.5% increase on median CEO pay levels as of March 2023, while the median worker’s pay has increased by 6%.

“Lobbyists for big business and the financial services industry spent much of 2023 arguing that top earners in Britain aren’t paid enough and that we are too concerned with gaps between the super-rich and everybody else,” said High Pay Centre Director Luke Hildyard.

“They think that economic success is created by a tiny number of people at the top and that everybody else has very little to contribute. When politicians listen to these misguided views, it’s unsurprising that we end up with massive inequality, and stagnating living standards for the majority of the population.”

Leading business and finance figures in the U.K. in 2023 called for an increase in remuneration for British CEOs. The High Pay Centre highlighted that in December, Legal and General Investment Management adjusted its executive pay guidelines to permit companies it invests in to offer more generous incentive payments.

In May, London Stock Exchange CEO Julia Hoggett argued that pay levels for top executives were too low, and pose a risk to the U.K.’s ability to attract and retain elite domestic and international talent, in turn jeopardizing the economy.

“And yet, very often, this talent objective is hampered by the advice and analysis of the proxy agencies and some asset managers voting against executive pay policies even when those pay levels are significantly below global benchmarks,” she said in a post on the exchange’s website.

“Often the same proxy agencies and asset managers that oppose compensation levels in the UK support much higher compensation packages in different jurisdictions, notably in the U.S.”

S&P 500 CEOs stateside earned an average of $16.7 million in 2022 compared to an average full-time worker’s annual salary of $61,900, according to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Hoggett said a “constructive discussion with all stakeholders about a topic that tends to generate emotion and strong views” was essential if the U.K. is to be placed on a competitive footing internationally.

‘Obscene levels of pay inequality’

The Trades Union Congress, which represents 48 member unions across the U.K., said Thursday’s figures showed Britain’s ruling Conservative government was presiding over “obscene levels of pay inequality.”

“While working people have been forced to suffer the longest wage squeeze in modern history, City bosses have been allowed to pocket bumper rises and bankers have been given unlimited bonuses,” TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the U.K. Treasury was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC.

U.K. workers and households have endured a historic cost of living crisis over the last two years, while the tax burden continues to grow and is expected to hit a post-war high of 37.7% of gross domestic product in 2028/29, according to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility. This is despite recently announced cuts to National Insurance tax on workers.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, one of the U.K.’s largest unions with over 1.2 million members, said the union would “not tolerate employers who want one rule for the bosses and another for the workers.”

“These CEOs need to get their snouts out of the trough and give their employees a proper piece of the pie. Unite is on a mission to make work pay in this country and where employers have ability to pay, we will continue to demand and win proper pay rises for our members,” she added.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) was the top spender among global sovereign wealth funds last year, accounting for about a quarter of the $124 billion splashed by state-owned investors, according to a preliminary report by research consultancy Global SWF.

The Saudi fund boosted its deal activities from a total $20.7 billion in 2022 to $31.6 billion in 2023, the research said, even as most other counterparts tapered down their spending. Overall, global sovereign wealth funds deployed 20% fewer funds compared to 2022, despite most major stock markets seeing a rally last year.

“This may signal an overly cautious approach, as there is no shortage of capital to put to work among these institutions,” the report, which tracks activities across the world’s sovereign funds, noted. 

“The clear winner was Saudi’s PIF, which has become a heavy-hitter both at home and overseas,” the analysts wrote. The PIF, controlled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has total estimated assets of $776 billion. The Saudi fund has pursued frequent deals and joint ventures in its pursuit toward Vision 2030 — a plan originally launched back in 2016 which aims to increase economic diversification away from oil. Notable overseas investments in 2023, alongside golf and soccer, included Nintendo in Japan and Vale Basic Materials in Brazil. 

Asides from PIF, four other funds from the GCC (Gulf Corporation Council) made it into the top 10 — Mubadala, the Qatar Investment Authority, ADQ and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

The PIF even surpassed Singapore’s GIC, which had led spending by wealth funds for the past six years. The Singaporean fund slashed its investment activity by 37%, in terms of volume, despite receiving one of its largest inflows from the central bank.

The report also noted the attention given to emerging markets among several sovereign investors. 

“In 2023 we can observe a renewed interest in emerging markets, including Saudi, Türkiye, and the UAE (with the help of domestic SWFs), and India, Brazil, China, and Indonesia,” it stated. 

Global economies will see more sovereign wealth funds coming online in 2024, such as Hong Kong’s HKIC, Philippines’ Maharlika and Pakistan’s PSWF.

“The formation of Dubai’s new SWF, DIF, will send shock waves and will surely attract personnel from other SWFs,” the research said.

For the past year, it’s been harder and more expensive for Russians to travel abroad.

But some say that’s only the beginning of their concerns.

With anti-Russian sentiment on the rise, several Russian citizens spoke to CNBC Travel about their worries, how they’re treated when they travel, and what goes through their minds when people ask where they are from.

Julia Azarova, an independent journalist, said she left Russia a year ago. She said she fled Moscow for Istanbul after the invasion of Ukraine, before eventually settling in Lithuania.

“I had to leave my own country” or risk imprisonment, she said. “We had to pack our things in a day and go.”

Since then, Azarova said she’s been to Latvia twice, but she can’t go to Ukraine, where she has relatives. Her Russian friends have encountered problems getting into Poland, while her colleagues have been prevented from entering Georgia, the latter likely in a show of loyalty to Putin, she said.

Anna — who asked that we not use her real name over fears of “unpredictable consequences” — has the opposite problem. She said she’s in Moscow and doesn’t know when she will leave Russia again.

“Normally, I’d visit one to two countries a year,” she said. But now “traveling somewhere abroad seems like something unimaginable and impossible.”

Traveling, especially airfare, is very expensive, she said. Also, “Russian credit cards are blocked almost everywhere and buying foreign currency in Russia is so difficult.”

As for when she plans to go abroad again: “Probably when the war ends.”

Another Russian traveler, Lana, also asked that we not use her full name over fears of retaliation from Russian authorities. She lives in Asia and was planning to go home last summer for the first time since the pandemic started, she said.

But she canceled the trip after the invasion of Ukraine, she said, despite her parents not having seen her child in years.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” she said, adding that the risk of border closures or flight cancellations prompted her decision.

Rather than returning home, Lana traveled around Asia — to places like Thailand and Japan.

It’s “really hard to go abroad and meet new people thinking that you are the person from Russia — and how people will respond to that,” Lana said.  

She said when people ask where’s she from, there’s an “anticipation moment” that didn’t exist when she was young.

“Back then, when you say ‘I’m from Russia,’ the first thing people say is vodka, bears, Matryoshka [dolls], and all that innocent stuff,” she said. “You kind of feel like yeah, I’m from Russia — it’s cool.”

But it’s different now, she said. While traveling, she braced for negative comments. Yet so far none have come, she said. Rather, people have offered words of sympathy and concern, she said.

Lana may have been lucky. A wave of anger at Russia has blanketed parts of the world, from Europe to the United States, in incidents which the Russian government has used to stoke nationalism in the country.

“Not everyone understands that the government, the country and the people, it’s not always the same thing,” she said. “Let’s say you’re from … [the United] States, I mean, you might not support Trump after all, right? The same thing’s been happening in Russia for the past, probably, 10 years.” 

Anna said telling new people she’s Russian has “always been tricky, to be honest, even before the war.”

She said there’s a “prejudice and stigma about Russians,” describing instances in Polish restaurants where waitstaff refused to serve her after spotting her Russian guidebook. After that, she began hiding her nationality more, she said.

She said being asked where she’s from will be even harder once she starts traveling abroad again.

“After the war, I guess, I’ll be afraid of the question even more, because I’ll instantly feel the need to start explaining myself, fearing a negative and aggressive reaction.”

Azarova agreed it’s hard to meet foreigners, especially as she wrestles with her own feelings of “guilt.”

“You understand that you personally haven’t done anything wrong, but you can’t get rid of the idea that something’s wrong with you personally,” she said.

Since leaving Russia, Azarova said she’s not had any confrontations over her nationality. However, like Anna, she said she often feels the need to quickly say how she feels about the war.

She said her conversations with foreigners have helped her because “you get the feeling that nobody’s blaming you.”

Now she’s now no longer afraid to say she’s Russian, she said, namely because she can’t do anything about it.  

“But I can do something to show the face of Russians who are not for Putin, who are not for that war … and who tried to do something to stop it.”

She now covers the war for the news channel Khodorkovsky Live, a YouTube channel backed by the exiled Russian businessman and prominent Kremlin critic, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

“People are just people,” Lana said, “regardless of nationality, your passport, your citizenship. I’ve lived in a few countries. I’ve traveled a lot. From my experience, most of the time stereotypes just don’t stand.”

Anna said she wants the world to know that not all Russians are “crazy scary.” Rather, they are friendly, warm-hearted, ready to help and eager to be good friends, she said.

“Many of us are trying hard to change something but people should know that it is difficult and very dangerous indeed to do … People should know, that behind scary news about Russia, there are millions of Russians, who suffer, who are scared and who are trapped, and who pray for peace every single day.”

Azarova said she wishes the world understood that sanctioning the Russian people, as opposed to the government and ruling elite, won’t influence Putin.

That’s because their opinions don’t affect change, like in a democracy, since “Putin is not an elected leader. This is a very, very important point. He hasn’t been elected in a fair and free election,” she said.

Plus, Putin doesn’t care what happens to Russian people, she said — their difficulties won’t change anything.

What will? “If Putin is removed by force” she said. But “Russian people don’t have … weapons.”

Lana said she’s fearful about the future.  

“I don’t … see a way out of the current situation. I’m afraid that Russia is … stuck,” she said.

Azarova said that, although she misses Moscow tremendously, she is slowly accepting she may never live there again.

“Never mind all the problems … it’s still a very beautiful city with all my memories of my childhood,” she said.

But she said, her home, the way she knew it, “no longer exists.”