It sounds more like the story we’ve been hearing from Wall Street: A huge company that was supposed to go out of business but, to survive, assumed massive debt and “downsized” (i.e., fired) lots of longtime faithful employees, has been revealed to have paid massive severance packages to the executives that ran the company into the ground.

Except in this case, the company is Borders. A Publishers Weekly report by Jim Milliot reveals the company…

… is paying out approximately $869,000 in severance to two departed executives. According to its proxy statement, Borders is paying $585,464 to Anne Kubek who resigned as executive v-p for merchandising and marketing in September, and $383,708 to Stephen Davis who stepped down as senior v-p for Borders Stores in January. Ron Marshall, who resigned as CEO in January, took home $805,774 for the year, but received no severance when he left for the A&P company.