China Life Insurance Co. will invest more than US$1 billion to take a 30% stake in American warehouse operations recently acquired by Singapore-listed Global Logistic Properties, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Global Logistic Properties said in a statement Thursday it had established a new fund to manage the assets, acquired from Denver-based Industrial Income Trust Inc., and that China Life Insurance and two institutional investors had jointly invested in 66% of the fund.

Chinese insurers are looking to expand their overseas real estate portfolios as a hedge against slowing economic growth at home. Anbang Insurance bought the Waldorf Astoria New York for $US1.95bn in February, becoming the highest price in purchasing US hotels. While recently, Ping An Insurance formed a $600 million fund with U.S. property fund Blumberg Investment Partners to invest in real-estate assets across the U.S.

Chinese insurers allocate only 1% of their capital to real estate compared with the 5%-15% allocation by their peers in the U.S. and Europe, according to data from property brokerage JLL.

"This leaves big potential for further inflows to overseas real estate," said Darren Xia, head of JLL's International Capital Group of China, adding that Chinese insurers could potentially allocate up to $240 billion in real estate abroad based on current metrics.