Meredith Whitney Lands Book Deal

Meredith Whitney, the banking analyst who made a name for herself with a series of hard-nosed reports about the financial sector, is ready to plant her own literary flag.

Ms. Whitney has signed a deal with Portfolio, an imprint of the Penguin Group, to write a book about the growing problems in the municipal bond market, according to a statement from the publisher. The book, tentatively titled “Downgraded: Why the Next Economic Crisis Will Be Local,” is expected to hit bookstore shelves in November.

In the book, Ms. Whitney – who shook bond markets with an appearance in 2010 on “60 Minutes” in which she predicted scores of municipal defaults – will “reveal why America’s cities and states are in deeper trouble than is commonly realized,” according to the publisher.

Ms. Whitney made a name for herself as an analyst at Oppenheimer & Company, where she gained attention for a report in 2007 on Citigroup that correctly predicted the bank would cut its dividend. In 2009, she started the Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, and has since been a regular on the business television circuit, in addition to being featured in Michael Lewis’s book, “The Big Short.”

Despite her newfound celebrity, Ms. Whitney’s 2010 call on municipal bonds, in which she predicted “50 to 100 sizable defaults,” has not exactly panned out. Only a handful of defaults have come to pass, and Ms. Whitney’s reputation for prescience has suffered as some critics have accused her of alarmism.

Still, as a Paris Hilton-imitating, professional-wrestler-marrying market maven, Ms. Whitney is doubtless one of the most entertaining equity analysts out there. (A bit of a tallest leprechaun contest, but still.)

“Since late 2008, dozens of American school districts, agencies, towns and cities have been taken under state control due to their inability to manage their own finances and pay their debts,” Portfolio said in its statement explaining the book’s premise. “According to Whitney, the evidence points to a mounting fiscal crisis in America’s towns and states that will drive a political and economic wedge between the haves and have-nots.”

The book deal, Ms. Whitney’s first, was negotiated by Robert B. Barnett, the literary superlawyer who has represented clients like Barack Obama and Sarah Palin (and who recently arranged a reported $4 million advance for Amanda Knox, the American student who was convicted of murdering her roommate in Italy but subsequently set free). The size of Ms. Whitney’s advance is unknown.

Will Weisser, Portfolio’s associate publisher, declined to comment on whether Ms. Whitney had enlisted the services of a co-writer, but said she was “very heavily into the process of writing” and was on track to meet her deadlines.

“We expect it to be somewhat controversial,” Mr. Weisser said. “Obviously there are a lot of strong feelings on this issue.”