The European Commission Tuesday cleared US-based Pepsico Inc. (PEP) to buy its bottling company PepsiAmericas Inc. (PAS).

Pepsico is paying $28.5 a share for the company which bottles mostly Pepsico beverages with operations in USA, Central and Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Central America, the commission said.

Before the bid, PepsiCo already owned a 43% stake in PepsiAmericas.

The deal together with another bottling company acquisition will allow PepsiCo to control 80% of its North American beverage distribution, a move the company has said would allow it to cut costs as the region's soda sales have been stagnating.

Pepsi's move reverses the steps the company took a decade ago to separate its bottling operations.

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.

-By Peppi Kiviniemi, Dow Jones Newswires; +3227411483; peppi.kiviniemi@dowjones.com (Anjali Cordeiro in New York contributed to this article)