DAC Beachcroft saw its net debt climb from £10m to £34m during the last financial year, with accounts recently filed with Companies House revealing that £8.3m of this was used to fund Beachcroft's acquisition of legacy Davies Arnold Cooper.

The limited liability partnership (LLP) accounts show the debt comprised £29.6m of bank overdrafts, compared with £5.1m the previous year, with a slight increase in bank loans as well to just over £8m.

The merger, which went live on 31 October 2011, resulted in a £6.5m exceptional cost as a result of the combined firm consolidating its London properties and vacating one building while still committed to rent obligations, as well as adding £2.6m of pension liabilities.

The positive impact of the acquisition included the addition of £5.2m of goodwill as well as revenues of around £21m, which helped overall fee income climb 22% from £134.3m in 2010-11 to £163.5m.

The merger swelled both staff numbers and staff costs considerably, with total staff numbers rising from 1,441 to 1,842, including the addition of nearly 400 fee earners, while total staff costs hit £85.9m, up from £72.2m. All UK staff were transferred into a service company called DAC Beachcroft Services on 1 May 2011.

Profits available for division among members fell from £25.4m to £21.9m, while the average number of members throughout the year climbed from 70 in 2011 to 111 in 2012. The highest-paid partner received £520,000 – a drop of more than 10% on the previous year's figure of £579,000.

The accounts also show that the firm was committed at year end to capital expenditure relating to the refurbishment of one of its premises of £1.5m, meanwhile client debtors grew from £38.9m in 2011 to £71.2m. Capital contributions by members increased to £7.1m from £600,000. Cash at bank stood at £5.4m at 30 April 2012 compared with £2.5m on 1 May 2011.

In a statement, the firm said: "The cash position of the business has worsened over the course of the year and, in addition to this cash movement, the net debt position has increased. The material part of this increase is client debtors. The firm continues to drive a more stringent revenue management process, including the proposed implementation of new IT systems to enable better debt collection."

Reporting its first combined results for 2011-12 last summer, DAC Beachcroft posted profits per member of £321,000 against revenues of £163.2m, putting it just outside the UK top 20 by turnover.