Nordgold and HRG Announce Agreement to Proceed with Subsequent Acquisition Transaction

Amsterdam and Toronto, December 21, 2012 – Nord Gold N.V. (LSE: NORD) (“Nordgold”) and High River Gold Mines Ltd. ("High River", TSX: HRG) are pleased to announce that they have entered into an arrangement agreement setting out their intention to complete a statutory plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act (Yukon) that will allow Nordgold to acquire all of the common shares of High River not already owned by Nordgold.

Nordgold currently owns 822,667,242 shares of High River, representing approximately 97.9% of the issued and outstanding High River shares. Nordgold acquired 192,039,770 of such High River shares under its recently completed take-over bid, representing approximately 91.6% of the High River shares held by shareholders other than Nordgold as of the commencement of the bid. Based on the number of shares acquired by Nordgold under the bid, Nordgold expects to have enough votes to approve the arrangement without requiring the support of any other High River securityholders.