Oct. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Accordia Golf Co., in which Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is the biggest shareholder, increased its credit lines to 16.5 billion yen ($182 million) to help buy golf courses in Japan, said two people familiar with the matter.

Tokyo-based Accordia, Japan’s largest golf course operator, added 4 billion yen to its credit facilities from three local banks, the people said, asking not to be named as the agreements are private.

Accordia, 45 percent-owned by Goldman Sachs, is seeking bargains after Japan’s deepest postwar economic contraction triggered about 30,000 bankruptcies since the recession began in November 2007, cutting asset prices.

“It’s positive news,” said Fumiyuki Nakanishi, a strategist at Tokyo-based SMBC Friend Securities Co. “Japan’s golf industry remains weak despite enthusiasm in young star golfer Ryo Ishikawa.”

Golf course operators need to sell goods at clubhouses to boost revenue, he said. “Therefore scale merit is their only strategy, so finance for acquisitions is good news.”

The company’s shares closed 3.5 percent higher at 85,200 yen in Tokyo after jumping as much as much as 5.1 percent earlier today.

The company had a combined 12.5 billion yen in loans available from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., board member Arihiro Kanda said in an interview in June. It plans to buy courses near Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo, he said. About a quarter of Japan’s 2,400 golf courses are owned by domestic real estate, railroad, trading and steel companies, according to Accordia.

“We are going ahead as we planned,” Kenichiro Nose, senior manager at Accordia’s investor relations unit, said in a telephone interview today, declining to comment on the company’s financing arrangements.

Accordia owned 123 golf courses in Japan as of Oct. 13, while rival Pacific Golf Group International Holdings KK had 122, filings show.

To contact the reporters on this story: Yusuke Miyazawa in Tokyo at ymiyazawa3@bloomberg.net; Takahiko Hyuga in Tokyo at thyuga@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 19, 2009 02:33 EDT