With the sixth successive record year of M&A activity in the RIA space, hitting yet another new record has essentially “become the expectation,” according to David DeVoe, founder of San Francisco-based investment bank and consulting firm DeVoe & Company, in the company’s fourth quarter 2019 Deal Book, released Wednesday. With 132 transactions last year, a 31% increase over the 101 deals signed in 2018, mergers and acquisitions are not "more of the same,” DeVoe said. 2019 deal velocity accelerated to nearly three times the historic annual increases of 10 to 15%.