Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (NASDAQ: GILT) said on August 17, 2026 that its Peruvian subsidiary, Gilat Perú, had signed an agreement valued at $14 million with the Regional Government of Ayacucho to build a fibre-optic broadband network in the south of that region. The announcement was furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 6-K and signed by Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary Doron Kerbel. Delivery is expected within 18 months.
The scope is set out in physical terms rather than financial ones. The project is expected to benefit 273 public institutions, comprising 236 schools and 37 healthcare facilities, serving approximately 20,000 residents across 109 localities. Gilat said it covers deployment of more than 1,060 kilometres of optical fibre, network monitoring and management systems, local area network installations, end-user equipment, and training to support adoption and operation of the new infrastructure.
Arieh Rohrstock, Corporate Senior Vice President and President of Gilat Peru, said the company was building on its experience delivering and operating broadband infrastructure across Peru. Wilfredo Oscorima Núñez, Regional Governor of Ayacucho, said the project would help extend access to education, healthcare and other essential public services. The announcement names no completion milestones, no revenue recognition schedule and no operating or maintenance term beyond the 18 month delivery window.
The mechanism the contract runs through
The contract sits under Peru’s Works for Taxes programme, known locally as Obras por Impuestos. Under that mechanism a private company finances and executes a public investment project presented by a regional or local government or a public university, and offsets the cost against its corporate income tax. The counterparty is therefore the regional government, and the funding source is tax the company would otherwise pay.
ProInversión, Peru’s private investment promotion agency, publishes the aggregate record. In 2024, awards through the mechanism reached S/ 4,203 million across 126 projects, with health at 50%, education at 22% and transport at 13% of the total. The agency said that figure was unprecedented in 16 years since the creation of the mechanism, that it is applied in 23 regions, and that 43 public entities and 73 companies had used it. Over the accumulated 2009 to 2024 period the mechanism reached 628 works awarded for S/ 11,776 million, of which 80% were decentralised works. By sector over that period, education accounted for S/ 2,910 million, transport S/ 2,669 million and health S/ 2,120 million.
Ayacucho is not among the regions ProInversión highlights as the heaviest users. The agency’s ranking of public entities over 2009 to 2024 is led by the Regional Government of Ancash with five projects worth S/ 1,317 million, followed by Ica, Arequipa and La Libertad. Local governments awarded 424 investment projects for S/ 3,883 million over that period and the national government 64 projects for S/ 2,297 million.
Where this sits in Gilat’s Peru business
Gilat reports Peru as one of three operating segments, alongside Commercial and Defense. The Gilat Peru Division is described in the company’s own half year operating and financial review as specialising in end-to-end telecommunications solutions, including operation and implementation of large-scale network projects across terrestrial fibre optic, wireless and satellite networks.
That segment is growing faster than the rest of the group. Peru revenues for the six months ended June 30, 2026 were 29,476 against 20,726 a year earlier, in U.S. dollars in thousands, an increase of 42.2%, lifting Peru from 10.5% to 12.6% of total revenues. Group revenues were 233,137 against 197,007, up 18.3%, with Commercial at 155,771 and Defense at 47,890. The company attributed the $8.7 million increase in Peru revenues primarily to expansion projects awarded under the Regional PRONATEL projects, partially offset by revenue recognised in the prior-year period on the resolution of a variable consideration constraint.
PRONATEL is the Peruvian state’s national telecommunications programme, which runs regional broadband projects and the Red Dorsal Nacional de Fibra Óptica backbone. The Ayacucho award is a different procurement route to those projects: a regional government using a tax offset mechanism rather than a national programme tender.
Analysis: a small contract that shows how the segment is being fed
The $14 million headline is modest against a Peru segment that produced 29,476 in a single half year, and it is spread over an 18 month delivery period. Even on a straight-line reading it is a fraction of the segment’s current run rate rather than a step change. What makes it worth attention is the route rather than the size.
Gilat’s own explanation of Peru growth in the first half rests on Regional PRONATEL projects, which are national programme awards. The Ayacucho contract comes from a regional government spending money it would otherwise remit as corporate tax through a third party. Those are two distinct demand channels with different approval bodies, different budget cycles and different political exposure. A company that can win in both is less dependent on the pace of any single national programme, and the announcement is the first public evidence in this reporting period that the second channel is producing signed work.
The mechanism also changes what the counterparty risk looks like. Under Works for Taxes the private financier carries execution risk on a public project and recovers value through the tax system rather than through progress payments from the regional government’s own budget. ProInversión’s own record shows why regional governments reach for it: the agency describes the mechanism as gaining ground as a substitute for traditional public works. It also shows the concentration. A single hospital project in Huaraz was awarded for more than S/ 1 billion, so the aggregate figures are shaped by a handful of large health and transport works, and telecommunications does not appear among the five largest sectors ProInversión lists.
The disclosure gaps are the same ones that make quantifying any of this hard from outside. Gilat has not said how the $14 million converts to revenue, whether it is recognised over time on a percentage of completion basis as its construction contracts generally are, or whether any operating and maintenance obligation follows the build. It has not published a Peru segment backlog. The company also has a much larger transaction pending: on June 14, 2026 it signed a definitive agreement to acquire the majority of the Satellite and Space Communications segment of Comtech Telecommunications Corporation for $157.5 million in cash on a cash-free, debt-free basis, having paid a $10 million advance, subject to CFIUS, FTC and Department of Justice clearance. That deal, not a $14 million regional contract, is what will move the shape of group revenue.
What a careful reader would look at next is the Peru segment line in the next half year review, and specifically whether the commentary continues to attribute growth to PRONATEL alone or begins to name Works for Taxes awards separately. A second check is the 18 month delivery window, which on the company’s own timetable places completion well beyond the current financial year, so any revenue from this contract straddles several reporting periods. A third is whether further regional governments follow Ayacucho, which would turn a single contract into the channel the segment’s growth actually depends on.
