A Norwegian firm has won an eBay auction.

Not for any old bit of secondhand furniture though.

Reuters sources say Adevinta won a contest to buy the U.S. firm’s classifieds business for almost 9 billion dollars.

That covers brands including Gumtree in the UK, and Kijiji in Canada.

In all it offers online ads to more than 1,000 cities around the world.

The deal comes at a time when stay-at-home consumers have boosted demand for online market places.

It had been pushed by activist investors including Elliott Mangement, as part of a plan that they say could double eBay’s value.

The unit posted revenues of almost 250 million dollars in the first quarter of 2020.

Adevinta is a spin-off from Nordic media firm Schibsted.

It already owns numerous classified sites around the world, including Leboncoin, France’s biggest.

Now the new deal could see it double in size from its current market capitalisation of about 8.5 billion dollars.

Neither Adevinta or eBay have commented on the report.