19.  Earnings Per Share

Due to the similarities in terms between BlackRock nonvoting participating preferred stock and the Company’s common stock, the Company considers its participating preferred stock to be a common stock equivalent for purposes of earnings per share (“EPS”) calculations. As such, the Company has included the outstanding nonvoting participating preferred stock in the calculation of average basic and diluted shares outstanding.

The following table sets forth the computation of basic and diluted EPS for the three months ended March 31, 2018 and 2017 under the treasury stock method: