Addleshaw Goddard spent £20.9m fitting out its new London office in Milton Gate, the firm's limited liability partnership (LLP) filings have revealed.

According to the filings with Companies House, the national firm took out a £5.5m loan in order to help fund the process of setting up the new flagship office.

However, Addleshaws told Legal Week that the loan was relatively small in comparison to the total costs of £20.9m, with the firm having built up cash reserves to pay for the long-planned move, which united its London lawyers under one roof.

Addleshaws chief financial officer Martin Gaskin commented: "Significant costs were always on the cards for the fit-out of a very high class building in Milton Gate. We have had cash reserves because the planning of bringing our London lawyers under one roof has been a long-term strategy, therefore we only needed a £5.5m loan."

The accounts also show that cash in hand at the bank decreased to £6.9m for 2008-09 compared to £11m the previous year, while the highest-paid member at the firm received £552,995 in 2008-09 – a 31% decrease on the top earnings of £800,132 in 2007-08.

Average total staff numbers employed during the year, excluding partners, decreased by 64 to 1,178. The firm attributed this to natural wastage, with the impact of redundancies not accounted for in the LLPs as they were carried out after 30 April 2009.