While there is some concern about when the economy may soften, now continues to be a great time, possibly one of the best times in history, to sell a company. 2018 has been characterized by a continued solid growth for many businesses. This improved performance in combination with the large amounts of available investable capital trying to find a solid return have resulted in another great year for our clients and a great time to sell a business. We expect 2018 and 2019 to continue to show solid financial results and a continued upswing in business sales. Due to the increase in values, the average deal size continues to be well above industry average in our market areas.
Our industry saw a larger number of transactions, and more importantly, our clients experienced higher transaction values overall. ROI has been able to sell many businesses and to represent buyers and sellers successfully over the last several years in the industry areas of services, manufacturing, distribution, professional practices, retail and hospitality. We succeed in putting deals together at the highest values for our sellers because of the exclusive processes we utilize to market and drive value. The market continues to set the price of a company but ROI continues to run an exclusive process which brings the best buyers in the market to the bargaining table for our seller clients.