I’VE admired Citigroup’s radical approach to City protocol, but its strategy is now looking like breathtaking arrogance — or extreme stupidity.

Last year, chief executive Chuck Prince was still unfolding himself from a grovelling bow to Japanese authorities for his maverick private bank, when his European executives sparked a furore — and an official investigation — with an audacious raid on the Eurobond market.

Ten days ago Citigoof struck again. This time, one bright spark decided that instead of buying Hoare Govett from ABN Amro, the bank would nick the corporate-broking team instead. After signing up the five top directors, the plan was to swoop on more than 20 other brokers, make them offers they couldn’t refuse and have them in the bag before their bosses could say clogs.

Cunning. And insiders at Hoare Govett, who told Prufrock they had spoken to JP Morgan before the bank bought Cazenove, said they would have been tempted — except for the now-typically ham-fisted job the Americans made of it.

Citigroup failed to contact all those it had targeted, which created confusion and anger at Hoare Govett, where teams thought they would be split. Hurried interviews held in secret locations across London ended with the Americans issuing everyone with an “exploding contract” — an ultimatum to decide by last Sunday night.

The remaining Hoare Govett directors gathered their scattered staff in their offices on Sunday afternoon. Brokers demanded more pay — and got as much as half again. Others asked for a two-year lock-in and were offered three.

Citigroup was out to get the team on the cheap, and whatever the Americans offered was immediately trumped by the determined Hoare Govett directors.

In the end, Citigroup lured away just two of the 20 — ironically ensuring that Hoare Govett is now one of the most stable platforms in London. Citigroup says it’s still hiring. Fine. But it won’t work without a more subtle plan of attack.

Yo! You’re out on your ear

FAIRY stories end with dragons being slain, and that’s exactly what has happened on the set of Dragons’ Den, the BBC reality TV show that asks investors to pitch their business ideas to a panel of seasoned entrepreneurs.

I hear dragon Simon Woodroffe, the Yo! Sushi founder, has been axed from the show just after filming of the second series started. Even more mysteriously, Woodroffe appears not to have got round to telling anyone — not even those who have signed him as a speaker in lucrative deals.

Woodroffe couldn’t be contacted, but the producers are already recruiting a new dragon. Nominations to Prufrock please.

• SO, you thought the extravagance of the prime minister’s wife Cherie Blair was a new thing? Apparently not. Residents in London’s exclusive Connaught Square were stunned when the First Family bought a house for an eye-watering £3.65m (£822 a square foot), reckoning the price was miles over the odds.

  Now that a home on the other side of the square is on the market, they have at last been proved right. The house, which is smaller but has the bonus of a garden, is on sale for £2.75m — or £600 a square foot.

  Better get a lucrative new day job, Tone.

  Trouble in stores...

  TESCO is always witheringly dismissive of anyone who complains about its innovative tactics to grab yet more market share. But it seems the supermarket is less grown-up when it comes to taking its own medicine.

  A couple of weeks ago Tesco opened a new Metro store just yards from J Sainsbury’s headquarters — and its flagship Local store — in Holborn, central London. Within hours Sainsbury staff responded by offering free vouchers to Tesco customers.

  My man in the aisles tells me that the promotioncaused much upset at Tesco — which counteracted by offering to accept its rival’s vouchers. Now Tesco is complaining about juvenile tactics: someone keeps stealing the promotional posters outside its store. Well, every little helps.

  The US company will an-nounce at the Paris air show this week that one of its new 777-200LRs will make the bid this summer, and is likely to stay aloft for 24 hours and fly more than 10,000 miles. They want passengers? Me first. Not.

• YOU can’t beat the loyalty of Buchanan’s Bobby Morse and his unflinching service to Regal and Frank Timis. A long time after Regal’s own admissions, he insisted that Timis was never a drug pusher and that a big oil find in Greece was “still on the cards”. Now the PR man denies Timis is being investigated in Romania, despite official confirmation. Watch out for more Morse code.