Curaleaf will now have a firm grip on the west coast markets like California, courtesy of a record $1 billion deal which saw Cura Partners merging with the former.

The merged company would reportedly have annual revenue of over $200 billion, making Curaleaf the biggest cannabis company in the U.S, even surpassing the likes of Trulieve Cannabis which had made nearly $139 million in revenue last year.

CBS News suggests that the deal is expected to close in the latter half of 2019.

With the merger, Massachusetts-based Curaleaf will get access to nearly 900 retails stores selling Cura Partners’s — a Portland, Oregon-based company — Cannabis Oil brand, ‘Select’.

Russell Stanley, an analyst at Beacon Securities, says that half the retailers selling ‘Select’ Oil are located in California, a key market in terms of cannabis products.

Curaleaf, a publicly-traded company, is reportedly in talks for cannabis dispensary Acres in Nevada. A spokesperson for CL said that they are likely to continue using acquisitions to boost growth and expand into favorable markets. He added that Michigan is the next state where the company wants to expand its operations at the earliest.

Notably, Michigan not only has a well-established medical cannabis community but also a potential recreational customer base as the drug was legalized for adult-use last year.