The biggest business media company in the world is being born today (April 17th, which it is in Asia now), as Thomson Reuters. The new company, with headquarters in New York, has annual revenues of $12.5 billion, 50,000 employees and more than 40,000 customers in 155 countries. The combined company’s shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange; Toronto Stock Exchange; London Stock Exchange; and Nasdaq.

The new logo is the orange one you see on the right, and the new joint company site is up as well. The company is defining itself as a provider of “intelligent information” that people will pay for, CEO Tom Glocer told, well, his own company, in an interview.

Thomson Reuters hopes to have enough diverse products in its portfolio that will help it ride out a financial industry downturn. Shares of the company will start trading in London, Toronto and New York April 17. The shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange; Toronto Stock Exchange; London Stock Exchange; and Nasdaq. Glocer said that despite the downturn, the company was benefiting from “hot demand for foreign exchange and energy data and was less exposed to problem areas like mortgage desks than rivals,” the story said. Not defined yet, but expect some job cuts from the integration; then of course there will be product integration challenges as well, trying to marry the financial products with the professional services.

On layoffs, a story on TheDeal blog cites a Thomson source which says several thousand layoffs are expected, though not clear on what schedule. There have been some senior exec departures as well, during this merger process: Thomson (NYSE: TOC) Financial CEO Sharon Rowlands; Donal Smith, Thomson’s president and COO for EMEA and Asia; and Christopher Hagman, managing director of global sales and service operations at Reuters, the post says.

Updated: From NYT: Entire subway stations in New York, Toronto and London will be decorated with the company’s new name and its new logo as will the buildings housing the leading stock exchanges in those cities. And most of the electronic displays in Times Square will be taken over by the logo for part of the day as Glocer leads a global telecast for the combined companies’ 50,000 employees. Also, Andy Bateman, the CEO of Interbrand in New York, who created the company’s new identity, said that neither Thomson the company nor the family of the same name that controls it insisted that its name be part of the new corporation’s title, but that research indicated that both company’s brands were too well known in their target markets to be dropped entirely.

The company has also relaunched Reuters.com with a new simplified logo and re-tweak of its design, something that was much needed for a long time now.