A trust is... well I don't have to go into that now.
What matters is that a trust created a single, central management team.
And that team directed the activities of what otherwise still appeared to
be independent companies.This new...uh...legal entity worked so well that at on
controlled 90% of the country's oil refineries.
中間那句
有點不懂the activities of what otherwise 是要轉折的用意嗎?

我都是把它理解成「本來」的意思,就是如果沒有前述情況某人事物本來應該是blah blah之類的