After dragging his feet for years, Rosneft chief Igor Sechin has sold off a sizable share of Russia's largest oil company. On Dec. 7, Rosneft announced that a consortium comprising Swiss oil trader Glencore and Qatar Investment Authority had bought a 19.5 percent stake in the firm for $11.3 billion. Sechin, who saw the shares as an important source of political power in Russia, has held onto them for some time. But the Kremlin finally ordered Rosneft to find a buyer before the end of the year in the hope of using the funds to plug the gaping hole in its budget. Under mounting pressure from Moscow, Sechin agreed to settle the sale on the condition that his company be permitted to buy out Bashneft , the country's sixth-largest oil firm. Russian President Vladimir Putin initially rejected the compromise, but as the Kremlin's finances worsened, he eventually gave in.