PepsiCo.'s (PEP) three-month-old unresolved bids for its bottlers appear to be raising questions for some investors.

The end of bottler PepsiAmericas Inc.'s (PAS) earnings conference call on Tuesday took an unusual turn with well-known investor and chief executive of GAMCO Investors, Mario Gabelli, coming on the line to raise questions on why the proposed deal was taking so long to negotiate.

In April, PepsiCo unveiled a bid to buy its two largest bottlers, Pepsi Bottling Group Inc. (PBG) and PepsiAmericas. But the bottlers soon rebuffed that offer, calling the bid inadequate. PepsiCo has maintained that it is offering a fair price.

"I was just trying to figure out what the touchy-feely subjects are, that it takes this long to negotiate a deal as simple as this - other than price," Gabelli said to PepsiAmerica executives. He drew no specific response from the bottler's chief executive, Robert Pohlad.

According to data from FactSet Research Systems, as of March 31, GAMCO Investors was PepsiAmericas second-largest investor, holding 5.56% of the shares outstanding. FactSet put Barclays Global Investors as the bottler's largest investor as of March 31. FactSet also shows GAMCO Investors as holding 720,011 shares, or 0.05% of shares outstanding, of PepsiCo as of March 31. Gabelli couldn't be reached for comment.

A PepsiCo spokeswoman declined to comment. A PepsiAmericas spokeswoman confirmed that Gabelli's firm is a shareholder of PepsiAmericas, but didn't comment further.

Pohlad had said earlier in the call that evaluating the PepsiCo bid required negotiations, but added that "PepsiAmericas believes it is time to bring any discussions to a conclusion." Pohlad clarified later on the call that his comments shouldn't be interpreted as "impatience."

Investors still appear to expect the deal to go through and at a higher price than PepsiCo.'s offer. Shares of Pepsi Americas and Pepsi Bottling are both trading above the implied price of the PepsiCo bids. In April, PepsiCo offered $29.50 in cash and stock for each share of Pepsi Bottling Group and made a separate offer for PepsiAmericas at $23.27.

Shares in Pepsi Bottling were recently up 1% to $33.73 and PepsiAmericas had gained 1.8% to $27.00.

In its recent earnings conference call, PepsiCo declined to comment on the bids and some analysts have speculated that the negotiations could take a while.

-By Anjali Cordeiro, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2200; anjali.cordeiro@dowjones.com