Ambassadors International Inc., the Spokane-based travel business, has consolidated its performance group, which is made up of about nine operating entities mostly in California, and established a headquarters for that unit in Newport Beach, Calif.


Meanwhile, the company, which has about $80 million in cash to finance acquisitions, has bought an about 20 percent interest in Arlington, Va.-based SatoTravel, a $1 billion provider of travel-management services to corporations and government agencies.


Ambassadors also has begun buying back shares of its stock under a $20 million share-repurchase authorization. The companys stock price, which currently is hovering around $13 a share, had reached a peak of about $32 a share early last year and then dropped to $11 a share last fall, says Jeffrey Thomas, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Ambassadors.


Thomas says Ambassadors performance group, which provides meeting management, hotel-registration services, and performance-improvement programs to corporations, has reduced its work force by 25 as a result of the consolidation. He says that about 15 jobs were cut through attrition last fall and another 10 positions were trimmed in January. The performance group now employs about 60 people.


Thomas, who also is president and CEO of Ambassadors education group, which is based at the corporate office here, adds that the Spokane operation wasnt affected by the job cuts. The corporate office here, at 110 S. Ferrall, continues to employ about 130 people. Ambassadors employs a total of 300 people nationwide, he says.


Thomas says that Ambassadors acquired Helin Organization, a Newport Beach-based company that became the foundation of the performance group, more than two years ago. In the past two years, the production group has acquired an additional eight businessesmany of which were based throughout Southern California. He says Ambassadors decided to establish the performance groups main office in Newport Beach because many of those operating entities are located nearby, a majority of the performance groups customers are based in that area as well, and its the hometown of Ron Merriman, who was named president of the performance group in 1997.


Earlier this year, Ambassadors spent $3 million to buy a 20 percent interest in SatoTravel. Other owners of SatoTravel include GE Pension Trust, a unit of General Electric Co., and Stuart Mill Capital, an Arlington-based investment firm that is run by Lawrence Hough, formerly CEO of Sallie Mae.


Thomas says Ambassadors chose to buy only a minority interest in SatoTravel because it represents a new area of business for Ambassadors. He adds, though, that Ambassadors has the option to increase its ownership interest in the future, should it decide to do so.


Ambassadors, which completed a public offering last April that netted the Spokane company $71 million for acquisitions, was pounded by Wall Street later in the year for not moving ahead more aggressively with those purchases.


The company says it now has $80 million available to finance acquisitions, and currently has a few acquisitions in the works. Thomas declines, though, to discuss details about the deals the company is working on.


Weve been very selective to date about which companies we buy and that will continue, he says.