Cazoo, the second hand car company that was set up in 2018 to "make selling a car as simple and seamless as ordering any other product online today" has hit a milestone has it is due to float on the New York Stock Exchange from today.

At 2.30 UK time, founder and chief executive Alex Chesterman OBE will ring the bell as his company begins its listing, hoping to achieve a valuation of up to £5.8 billion.

If the valuation is earned, Cazoo will be the highest valued UK firm trading across the pond.

In the second quarter of this year, the used car firm sold 10,692 vehicles, earning a revenue of £141 million.

At the time of the announcement of quarterly results, Chesterman said: "We now have over 2,250 customer-obsessed staff, fully focused on delivering the best and most comprehensive car buying experience to consumers across the UK and Europe.

"Our strong performance is a result of the hard work and dedication of everyone at Cazoo, and I would like to thank the entire team for this superb performance despite the COVID restrictions experienced during this period,"

Chesterman said of the NYSE announcement: "Today is an important and exciting day for Cazoo as we enter the public markets. Since we announced the transaction earlier this year, we have continued to see record growth in our revenues and gross profit, have brought our UK vehicle reconditioning in-house, providing full control of our operations and logistics and have started buying and reconditioning cars in mainland Europe ahead of our launch later this year. And we have launched a fully integrated all-inclusive monthly car subscription service in the UK as well as our car buying service to source inventory directly from consumers.

"We remain obsessed with delivering the best car buying and selling experience for consumers across the UK and mainland Europe and the capital raised from this transaction will give us the resources to further accelerate our growth. Our world-class team has been further strengthened by our combination with AJAX and we could not be more pleased to partner with Dan and his team. The opportunities ahead of us are enormous and I am very excited about our next chapter and expect this combination to further drive our tremendous growth."