DETROIT (Reuters) — General Motors Corp. said yesterday its third-quarter loss was a bit smaller than it had announced due to a late loan sale by its finance arm.The world’s largest automaker, in its quarterly filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, revised the loss to $91 million, or 16 cents a share, from the $115 million, or 20 cents a share, it had reported late last month as part of its preliminary quarterly results.

GM also increased third-quarter revenue to $48.9 billion from $48.8 billion.

A spokeswoman for GM’s finance arm General Motors Acceptance Corp. said the unit settled a deal to securitize a loan after GM reported preliminary earnings.

“There is always a period of time between the preliminary results and the filing. We had a securitization clear in that time, so it’s more a function of reporting timeline than anything else.”