Betting on the future of low-profile print publications.

He understands the value of these regional newspaper franchises. A few people on the stock market forgot that.

As Rupert Murdoch trains his sights on Dow Jones & Company, owner of The Wall Street Journal, another veteran of the British newspaper wars is betting on the future of lower-profile print publications.

Last week, while Mr. Murdoch wooed reluctant Dow Jones shareholders and as the financial information providers Thomson and Reuters were explaining their case for a possible merger, David Montgomery was quietly seeking to buy control of the Dutch publisher Koninklijke Wegener.

Koninklijke Wegener’s newspapers, including De Twentsche Courant Tubantia, may not have the global name recognition of The Wall Street Journal, but they attracted a bid of up to 806 million euros, or nearly $1.1 billion, from Mr. Montgomery, through Mecom, the London company that he heads.

In a series of deals since 2005, Mecom has acquired more than 100 local and regional newspapers in the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Norway and Ukraine at a cost of more than 2 billion euros.

Mr. Montgomery, a onetime copy editor who was chief executive of the Mirror Group of newspapers in the 1990s, is going after smaller targets than Mr. Murdoch or Samuel Zell, the Chicago investor who recently bought the Tribune Company, owner of The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times.

But his acquisition spree reflects similar trends, analysts say. After several years of handwringing about readers and advertisers defecting to the Internet, some investors see value in old-fashioned print publishers — at least, if their share prices have fallen enough to create bargains.

“There’s a lot of money sloshing around, and things are not as bad as people suggest,” said Gavin O’Reilly, president of the World Association of Newspapers, during a presentation last week to journalists and financial analysts in London.

Mr. Montgomery, who started Mecom in 2000, is bullish on the industry despite — or perhaps because of — the often-cited threat of the digital media revolution.

“We are in the most exciting stage of development not only in the history of our business but also the entire history of print,” he said last week in a phone interview. “Newspapers have totally underestimated the main resource they have, of content gathering and content projection.”

So far, newspapers in Europe may have lost fewer readers to the Internet than their counterparts in the United States, analysts say.

Last year, circulation of paid-for newspapers rose 0.7 percent in Europe, in contrast to a 2 percent drop in North America, according to the World Association of Newspapers, which is based in Paris.

But like North American newspapers, European papers have been hurt by a more sluggish advertising market.

Over the last five years, newspaper ad revenue has risen only 11 percent in Europe, compared with 16 percent in North America and 21 percent in Asia, according to the newspaper association.

Harsh business conditions have created an opportunity for investors like Mr. Montgomery, a native of Northern Ireland. In 2005, Mecom and a partner, the New York investment firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, bought control of the owner of Berliner Zeitung, becoming the first foreign owners of a major German newspaper.

Mr. Montgomery’s reputation as a cost-cutter in Britain preceded him, and his investment in Berlin prompted protests from the paper’s journalists.

The editor who led the revolt, Uwe Vorkötter, has since been replaced, and Mecom has moved to take full control of Berliner Verlag, the paper’s parent company.

Mr. Montgomery has said he wants to raise profit margins across the company, in part by cutting costs. But that may be more difficult on the Continent than in Britain, where labor protections are weaker, analysts say.

“Montgomery still has to prove he can do that in Europe like he did in the U.K.,” said Oskar Tijs, an analyst at Kempen Research in the Netherlands.

By keeping costs low, some publishers in Britain have turned regional papers into a lucrative business. One of these companies, Johnston Press, has enjoyed profit margins of more than 30 percent in recent years.

On the Continent, margins are typically tighter, in part because costs are higher. Employees at Koninklijke Wegener, for instance, receive 70,000 euros (about $95,000) in annual pay and other benefits, considerably more than their British counterparts, Mr. Tijs said.

Still, Mr. Montgomery is not the only European publisher who is sanguine about the prospects of Continental newspapers.

Axel Springer, the German publisher of the tabloid Bild, recently started a paper in Poland, and it plans to introduce a tabloid this year in France, one of the most depressed European newspaper markets in recent years. And Metro International and other publishers of free newspapers have expanded rapidly across the Continent; two-thirds of the 40 million free dailies circulated globally are distributed in Europe, according to the newspaper association.

Mecom is not wedded to any one type of publication. It owns or holds majority stakes in paid-for broadsheets like Berlingske Tidende in Denmark and Rzeczpospolita in Poland, as well as tabloids and free papers.

One of the advantages of owning large clusters of newspapers, Mr. Montgomery said, is the economies of scale. Mecom has been able to eliminate overlapping administrative jobs, he said, and to buy newsprint and other supplies in bulk.

“Scale is not just a defensive mechanism through cost reductions,” he added, “but also part of an offensive strategy, in terms of generating new lines of revenue.”

Consolidation has helped small publications with limited resources develop an online presence, he said. And Mecom is also prodding its papers to develop new business lines that tap existing subscribers, selling them wine or financial services, for instance.

Despite moves to make the papers more businesslike, Mr. Montgomery insisted that editors, not business managers, maintained control over content. But he said journalists “have to understand the commercial realities of a changing newspaper environment.”

Mr. Montgomery said he would continue to look for opportunities to expand, primarily in Northern European markets with fragmented newspaper ownership.

Mr. Tijs said: “I think he understands the value of these regional newspaper franchises. A few people on the stock market forgot that.”