Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering group, shed €12.5bn ($19.7bn) in market capitalisation Monday after a shock €900m profit warning led to fears that the crisis in financial markets could be creeping into industrial companies.

The German conglomerate blamed a contract cancellation, project delays and capacity issues for the warning – all issues that investors are nervously eyeing. But Siemens said the subprime crisis was having no impact on its business, a line backed up by other industrial groups such as Linde, the world’s largest industrial gases group.