Kirkland Lake Gold Moves to Prevent Unwanted Takeover:Freeze on Hiring and Spending Introduced

Kirkland Lake Gold Inc. announced the adoption of a shareholder rights plan by its Board of Directors as part of its previously announced strategic review and short-term mine optimization plan. The Rights Plan is designed to enable  the board and management to complete their strategic and mine-plan reviews, by reducing the likelihood of any person or group gaining or increasing their control of Kirkland at this time.

According to the company, the Rights Plan was not adopted in response to a specific takeover bid or other proposal to acquire control of the Company. Rather it was adopted to prevent such a possibility from occurring while the company reviews its operations. The Special Committee of the Board, with the assistance of National Bank Financial continues to carefully evaluate all options available to the Company from continuing on a stand-alone basis up to and including a potential sale of the Company's shares or assets.

As part of the company’s austerity measures Chief Executive Officer, George Ogilvie, introduced a short-term mine optimization plan that includes a hiring freeze, reduced capital and operating expenditures, shut down of lower-grade slopes, and reductions in discretionary spending. According to the company, these measures are expected to produce improved returns and create added value.

The Shareholders Rights Plan voids any attempts to acquire 15 % or more of the shares by an individual or group. The Stakeholder Rights Plan kicks in whenever any transaction is attempted by an individual or a group to acquire 15% or more of the outstanding common shares. The Plan gives  remaining shareholders who not part of the acquisition attempt the right to purchase common shares at a substantially reduced market price of the common shares at that time.  The rights of the individual or group whose actions trigger the Rights Plan would become void and not be exercisable.

The Board, however, retains discretionary power to defer the implementation of the Shareholders Rights Plan and also to waive the application of the Rights Plan.

The Kirkland Lake Gold Board considers a 15% triggering threshold to be appropriate in the circumstances and is intended to ensure stability and protect the interests of all shareholders while the Company completes its strategic review process.

The Rights Plan still needs to  be ratified by the shareholders within six-months of its adoption. If the Rights Plan is not ratified by the shareholders, the Rights Plan and any rights issued pursuant to it will terminate. If the Rights Plan is put to a vote and ratified, it will continue in effect until the third annual meeting of shareholders thereafter. The Rights Plan is subject to acceptance by the Toronto Stock Exchange. A copy of the Rights Plan will be available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Kirkland Lake Gold's corporate goal is to create a self sustaining and long lived intermediate gold mining company based in the historic Kirkland Lake Gold Camp. The Company plans to do this by increasing production capacity to 2,200 tons of ore per day in several stages, and by decreasing production costs by realizing the economies of scale associated with that higher production capacity. At the same time, the Company is committed to maintaining a significant exploration program aimed at developing and maintaining a property wide reserve and resource base sufficient to sustain a mine life of more than ten years for as long as practicable.

Over the last several years the Company has invested significant capital to improve the infrastructure of the business including upgrading the production hoist, skips, mill, underground mobile equipment and capital development.

From initial discovery to present day there have been over 24 million ounces of gold mined from the Kirkland Lake camp while the current reserve and resource provides for potentially 10 years of mining with significant exploration upside.

For more information:

Kirkland Lake Gold
George Ogilvie, P.Eng
CEO
+1 705 567 5208 ext. 3225
Fax: +1 705 568 6444
gogilvie@klgold.com

or

Kirkland Lake Gold
Lindsay Dunlop
Director of Investor Relations
+1 416-840-7884
Fax: +1 705 568 6444
ldunlop@klgold.com
www.klgold.com