The fund's impairment provision against investments was A$9.4 million at the end of 2011, an improvement of A$917,000 from the end of June.
Shares in Mercantile rose 2.5 per cent to A8.2c on the ASX yesterday, and have gained 18 per cent this year.
Mercantile is at least the third diversified investment vehicle for Brierley, who built Guinness Peat Group after being forced out of Brierley Investments in the early 1990s.
The empire named for him had struggled to recover from the 1987 sharemarket crash and now exists as GuocoLeisure, with its primary listing on the Singapore stock exchange.
Brierley seized control of Mercantile, then called India Equities Fund, in January when shareholders agreed to a deal giving him 54 per cent of the company and its chair in return for his stakes in Copper Strike, Trinity Group, ING Community Living Group, Australian Pharmaceutical Industries and Trojan Equity.
Since then he brought in his old comrades Ron Langley and Gary Weiss via a A$2 million placement.
Last year, the 74-year-old investor told the Sydney Morning Herald he does not plan to quit the corporate world any time soon, though the new fund would not be anything "too big" or "too ambitious".
Brierley has also emerged as a co-investor with Sir Selwyn Cushing, a former Brierley Investments chairman, in Wellington's Kirkcaldie & Stains.