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JANUARY 15, 2021
UP FRONT
R EVEN MORE NEWS HITTING THE AUSTIN BUSINESS SCENE
signed a five-year lease.
wider opening the following week. When Easy Tiger closed on Sixth in September, CEO Mike Stitt pledged to eventually return to the downtown area “in a way that’s really unique and special.” “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when and how,” Stitt said at the time. The new site — the former home of event venue 7co — offers a unique layout close to the Central Business District, Stitt said. Its 15,000 square feet of outdoor space were particularly appealing to Easy Tiger, which has
EASY TIGER BRINGING BREAD, BEER TO EAST AUSTIN Easy Tiger Bake Shop & Beer Garden is setting up shop in East Austin. Months after departing its original location on East Sixth Street, where the company launched in 2012, Easy Tiger is returning to the core of urban Austin with a new, roughly 20,000-square-foot location at 1501 E. Seventh St (pictured at left). The new location is expected to have a soft opening on Feb. 3, with a
Rent will be higher than at its Sixth Street location, but there is considerably more space at the tree- lined building on East Seventh, where Stitt hopes Easy Tiger will be able to “borrow on the mystique and charm and magic” of the original. The East Seventh location is expected to have about 60 employees when it opens, bringing Easy Tiger back to its pre-pandemic headcount of about 180. — Paul Thompson
SYDNEY GAWLIK
PROMINENT UT ALUM SUCCUMBS TO COVID-19
James Moffett, a longtime energy and mining executive who’s remembered in Austin for donating millions of dollars to the University of Texas and for a controversial real estate project, died Jan. 8 after contracting Covid-19. He was 82. The New Orleans Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate reported that Moffett’s son, Bubba, said he died of Covid-19 complications. He had been ill for several years. Moffett spent nearly two decades as CEO of Phoenix-based mining giant Freeport-McMoRan Inc. He died at his home in Austin. Moffett, a Louisiana native known as “Jim Bob,” was a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, where he played football and studied geology. In the 1980s and ‘90s, Moffett clashed with environmentalists over plans to develop thousands of acres in Southwest Austin, through Freeport’s FM Properties spinoff. That fight ultimately lead to the creation of Save Our Springs Coalition, a powerful environmental group. Moffett gave extensively to his alma mater, UT, although that too came with some controversy over Freeport- McMoRan’s mining practices. Moffett and his wife donated $2 million for a renovation of UT’s football stadium and $2.5 million for a $30 million molecular biology building that bears their name, the Austin American- Statesman reported. — Jeff Gifford and Will Anderson $4.5B BUYOUT FINALIZED FOR PARSLEY ENERGY Pioneer Natural Resources on Jan. 12 completed its $4.5 billion buyout of Austin-based Parsley Energy Inc., after shareholders of both companies approved the merger. That means Parsley will no longer be traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and that the Texas capital has lost one of its few prominent energy headquarters. Pioneer (NYSE: PXD), based in the Dallas suburb of Irving, announced plans to buy Parsley in October. Including Parsley’s debt, the deal is valued at about $7.6 billion. Parsley stock owners will receive 0.1252 shares of Pioneer for each share they had of Parsley. “We are excited to close our transaction with Parsley and begin delivering on the significant synergies provided by this combination,” Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield said in a statement. “We appreciate the strong support from shareholders and are confident in the tangible and durable value created through this transaction, forming the premier Permian independent energy company.” — Will Anderson
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