Happy Wednesday, and welcome back to Dry Powder.

It goes without saying that not all major Wall Street deals are era-defining. But, every so often, one becomes a closely-watched bellwether revealing the health of the greater financial markets. The Citrix deal, which now involves the majority of the world’s preeminent banks, is the most recent example. In today’s newsletter, I dissect why every banker is tracking this deal, and what it portends for Wall Street writ large.

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In the heady days of pre-post-ZIRP Wall Street, the deal was a star-studded affair, at least as far as the financing goes. Vista, after all, is an industry leader, especially when it comes to technology deals, and Smith, despite some not insignificant complications around his tax avoidance history, is the second richest Black person in the country, behind Oprah. Elliott, for all its aggressiveness, is a wealth creation machine that first bought into Citrix in 2015, to great success, among other great successes. As part of the deal, a consortium of A-list Wall Street banks—led by Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs—committed to provide $16 billion of financing for the buyout of Citrix. These banks have a supporting cast of another 30 or so big banks from around the globe, including Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and the Royal Bank of Canada. (Only JPMorgan Chase is sitting this one out, which is a lucky turn of events for Jamie Dimon et al., as we shall see.)...