Philippe Laffont, founder of hedge-fund firm Coatue Management LLC, plans to return as much as 35 percent of the money in his main $7 billion fund.

Investors in the fund will receive the money at the end of June, according to a letter to clients that didn’t give an exact amount of the money to be returned. Laffont said the right size for the fund is $5 billion.

Coatue was among the hedge-fund firms that invested heavily in technology shares that slumped in the first quarter as popular holdings such as online retailer Amazon.com Inc. tumbled 15 percent. Laffont said his firm has cut its gross and net exposure to near historic lows after losing 9 percent in March.

“The move was as sudden and deep as some of the gut- wrecking dislocations of 2000-2002 and 2008-2009,” he said in the letter, contents of which were reported earlier by CNBC. “We are not smart enough to know if this rotation is just a pullback or will lead to a deeper and more protracted correction.”

Net exposure is calculated by subtracting the percentage of a hedge fund’s short positions, or bets on falling securities, from its long holdings, or wagers on rising stocks and bonds.