By Maria Kiselyova

MOSCOW (Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc and its largest bottler on Thursday agreed to buy a majority stake in Russia's leading juice producer in another step by the world's No. 2 soft drinks maker to increase its presence in healthier food and beverages.

PepsiCo (PEP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and the Pepsi Bottling Group Inc (PBG) (PBG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said they would buy 75.53 percent of the juice business of Lebedyansky (LBDO.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) for $1.4 billion.

Once Lebedyansky has spun off its other activities, in baby food and mineral water, PepsiCo and PBG will make a mandatory offer to purchase the shares held by all remaining Lebedyansky shareholders.

"This deal is a strategic positive for (Pepsi) longer-term, although meaningful contribution to earnings is likely a few years down the road," Goldman Sachs analysts said in a research report.

PepsiCo currently controls about 2 percent of the Russian juice market through the Tropicana brand, but does not have its own juice-producing facilities in Russia. Its rival CocaCola Co (KO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) controls over a fifth of the Russian juice sector after its $530 million purchase of producer Multon in 2005.

Lebedyansky has 30 percent of the Russian juice market and its juice sales last year stood at around $800 million. PepsiCo and PBG said Lebedyansky is the world's No. 6 juice producer.

"From the PepsiCo standpoint, this investment represents one of the most exciting steps our company has ever taken internationally," Zein Abdalla, President of PepsiCo Europe, told a news conference.

"With the Russian juice market forecast to grow to become one of the top five in the world sometime in the next decade, we believe the growth potential of this sector is significant."