PepsiCo Inc.'s (PEP) $6 billion bid for two of its bottlers is poised to have a far reaching effect across the U.S. beverage industry, spurring more cost savings for Pepsi, prompting big changes in distribution and raising the possibility of a similar move by rival Coca-Cola Co. (KO).

More immediately, PepsiCo's bid could spark a round of negotiations with the bottlers it is offering to buy if their boards decide to push for a better deal. One arbitrage trader said he bought the bottlers' stocks Monday morning in the hope there would be a higher price coming along, especially since Pepsi's offers were unsolicited.

PepsiCo said Monday it is offering $29.50 in cash and stock for each share of Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. (PBG) and is making a similar offer for PepsiAmericas Inc. (PAS) at $23.27. The stocks of both bottlers soared Monday, hitting levels that were above the implied acquisition price. Pepsi Bottling was recently up 23% to $30.98 and PepsiAmericas recently added 25% to $24.87. Both bottlers said they are reviewing the offers.

Shares of Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. (CCE), Coke's largest bottler, also rose nearly 8% in early trading and was recently up 2% to $15.18 as investors contemplated the possibility that Coke might move in Pepsi's direction.

"If Pepsi is successful in dramatically changing its go-to-market strategy in beverage, giving it a competitive advantage both in execution and cost saves, Coke may have no choice but to ultimately buy Coca-Cola Enterprises," said ConsumerEdge Research analyst Bill Pecoriello.

Coke has recently worked with Coca-Cola Enterprises to set up a joint organization to coordinate supply-chain activity. Coke - which reports earnings Tuesday - declined to comment. Coke is also seen as having some financial flexibility given that its $2.4 billion proposed deal for China Huiyuan Juice Group recently fell through.

Pepsi's proposed deals took investors by surprise Monday and Pepsi's shares were recently down 4% to $50.01, in line with the broad stock market. Pecoriello said there may be some concerns that Pepsi may have to offer more and worries about Pepsi executing the consolidation. The deal would also expose Pepsi to the slower-growth bottling business.

Pepsi's move marks a reversal of the steps that company took a decade ago to separate its bottling operation. In 1999, the company went through an initial public offering for a roughly 60% stake in Pepsi Bottling. That spinoff was intended to placate investors and to rid PepsiCo of a low-margin and capital-intensive business. Bottlers, which are heavy users of commodities like aluminum and are responsible for transporting the drinks, tend to have much narrower margins than Coke and Pepsi, which sell the soft drink concentrate and market the brands.

But in the last decade, the U.S. beverage industry has changed dramatically, with non-carbonated drinks growing and sales of fizzy sodas falling. The recession has put added pressure on sales of non-alcoholic drinks. PepsiCo's earnings on Monday reflected some of those pressures. The company's earnings exceeded expectations, but at the PepsiCo Americas Beverages unit, volume fell 6%.

In North America, volume performance was hurt by declines in carbonated soft drinks and sports drinks. On a constant currency basis, net revenue at the Americas beverages business declined 9% and core operating profit was down 10%. In a conference call after its earnings report, PepsiCo acknowledged that its Gatorade sports drink business had declined over the last year.

Pepsi's own business has evolved over the last decade, with the company acquiring non-carbonated brands like Gatorade and Tropicana, both of which aren't for the most part currently distributed through the bottling system. Pepsi argues that with the changes in the market, it needs to be more nimble in being able to use bottler and other distribution systems as needed. Owning the bottlers will allow for quicker distribution of new products and speedier decision making, it says.

"Pepsi needs more control and flexibility on how it gets which products to market and this will do that to them," said John Sicher, editor of trade publication Beverage Digest.

With North America under added pressure during the recession, all possible efforts to boost profits have come under the microscope. "We've been seeing this [soft drink] business in North America evolve. We've seen this profit pool remain flat and sometimes even shrink," said Chief Executive Indra Nooyi on the conference call. "And we've been thinking about every possible way we can reconceptualize this system so that all of us can make a healthy living in this business."

Pepsi currently owns a 33% stake in Pepsi Bottling and a 43% stake in PepsiAmericas. It still has 110 independent bottlers in the U.S. and could attempt to take over more of these businesses, many of which are small privately held family operations. Small bottlers can choose not to sell out since many of these businesses have perpetual contracts to distribute Pepsi's products, said Sicher.

Coke separated Coca-Cola Enterprises in the 1980s in a move that rid Coke of debt on its balance sheet from buying up bottlers. More recently, both Pepsi's and Coke's relationships with their bottlers have been fractious on occasion. Coca-Cola Enterprises late last year pointed to pressures it had felt from higher concentrate costs from Coke. Trade publication Beverage Digest, citing sources, said that moves by Pepsi Bottling and other bottlers to distribute some non-Pepsi brands like Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc.'s (DPS) Crush and Muscle Milk caused some consternation inside PepsiCo. It is still unclear what the impact of Pepsi's deal will be on Dr. Pepper Snapple. Stifel Nicolaus noted that the new Crush distribution agreements are perpetual and don't appear to provide a way out for a change of control.

Pepsi said its efforts at consolidation would create annual pre-tax synergies of more than $200 million through cost reductions and efficiencies of scale. Analysts said Monday that the estimate appeared to be conservative and that Pepsi could see more cost savings than its first estimate.

In an interview, PepsiCo Chief Financial Officer Richard Goodman said the bottler deals would help the company in a variety of ways by allowing a greater push for brands like Gatorade through the bottling system.

It would also allow Pepsi to work better with retailers in its offering of snacks and drinks, he said. Pepsi believes "the offer we made is a very fair offer," Goodman said. "We didn't make it at the bottom of the market." The deals are cross conditional, implying that Pepsi will go ahead only if agreements are reached with both bottlers.

Pepsi posted first-quarter net income of $1.14 billion, or 72 cents a share, compared with $1.15 billion, or 70 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue slipped 0.8% to $8.26 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of 67 cents on revenue of $8.28 billion.

-By Anjali Cordeiro, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2408; anjali.cordeiro@dowjones.com